


Scars

by SilentAuror



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: (none of the bad stuff is between John and Sherlock!), Bisexuality, Dark, Denial, Dubious Consent, Emotional Abuse, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Gaslighting, Homophobia, Jealousy, John/Sherlock - Freeform, M/M, Manipulation, POV: John Watson, Physical Abuse, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sexual Abuse, Tragic Elements, True love conquers all, emotional blackmail, john/mary - Freeform, set during series 3 and after
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-09
Updated: 2015-07-14
Packaged: 2018-04-08 10:32:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 60,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4301349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentAuror/pseuds/SilentAuror
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You loved him.” Her voice was gentle as John turned startled eyes to her face. Her gaze hadn’t wavered. “Didn’t you.” It was not a question. “Of course you loved him. It’s all right to tell me.” </p><p>John’s hands had been locked together, his knuckles white in the lamplight. He’d cleared his throat, looking at them. “Yeah,” he’d said, his voice rough. “I did.”</p><p>“That’s got to stop.” Mary’s voice hadn’t changed, not precisely, or not in any outward way that he could detect, and yet it was completely different. She sounded entirely calm and still very gentle, but beneath that there was something new. Something rather like steel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Scars**

**Part I**

It started about two months into his relationship with Mary. They were out for dinner but finished eating. He’d been talking about Sherlock, as had been his wont, Mary leaning her face on her hand, listening sympathetically. He’d talked about Sherlock a lot already by that point, but that was the night he’d told her the details of his death. He told her about the media turning on Sherlock and calling him a fraud, right up to and including the present moment. How he’d been the only one to believe in Sherlock and how the disgrace rubbed salt into the wound of his grief, even a year and a half later. 

Mary’s eyes were large and dark blue in the light of the lamp hanging over their table. By that point they had been sleeping together for a month already. They’d met in his grief counselling group before he suggested she apply at the clinic, and after the bleakness of his solitude, she’d been the kindest, gentlest, most caring person he’d met, or perhaps that was the mercilessness of grief speaking. It didn’t matter: she was sweet and funny and let him talk through it, talk about Sherlock. He couldn’t talk about Sherlock with anyone who had known him. There was so much he’d never said and it would have come out if he’d talked to Greg or Molly or someone like that. So much that should never be said, now that Sherlock was dead. With Mary, he could paint Sherlock exactly right. She’d never seen them together, never witnessed how very much like each other’s other halves they’d been. He knows that the Met staff talked about it behind their backs; it was always there in their eyes and the sniggers at the corners of their mouths. They probably thought he and Sherlock had been together, but they hadn’t been. With Mary, he could give it a fresh light, free of the judgement of people who’d already formed their own opinions about the two of them. She’d lost someone, but she never wanted to talk about it and said she preferred it that way. She did her talking with her counsellor one-on-one. She only ever wanted to listen when it was the two of them. 

The thing is, he already knew then how he’d felt, about Sherlock. He’d never admitted it. It was there lurking in the back of his mind but he’d never come out and said to himself, yes, that’s exactly it, given it a name or owned to himself precisely what it was. Because _he_ wasn’t – like that. He’d never. He’s had what he’s jokingly referred to as ‘man crushes’ before, but never seriously. Or never stopped to think how serious they might have been. Afghanistan doesn’t count. Active war zones are different. There, everyone does what he’s got to, with limited space and no privacy. Everyone on a squadron knows who’s jerking off and when and how often. It’s a subject of jokes and congenial conversation. He’d done his share of telling off an officer who got carried away or got too loud. _For fuck’s sake, Collins, get a sock and come off already, some of us are trying to sleep!_ With someone else chipping in, _And don’t go saying my name this time, either!_ to a round of laughter. Once, after a vicious mortar attack that had killed two, one of them had started up as they’d all lain there, awake in the dark, and one by one the rest had joined in. It was solidarity, comfort. An affirmation of life. He’d turned a blind eye to Hunt and Saunders kissing on Hunt’s bunk in the dark, groping each other while the rest of them got themselves off and tried to be quiet about it. Hunt had joined up at the same time as one of their dead. Everyone understood that sort of thing back there. Most of them didn’t do anything about it, but they all got it when other people did it. 

John hadn’t, though. He could have. There’d always been opportunities, and he’d never taken any of them. It didn’t mean he hadn’t thought about it, though, and if some of his men’s faces came to mind while he was tugging one out, he didn’t much care, give it a whole lot of thought. It wasn’t like he was about to go flirting with any of them, any more than any of his superior officers would have flirted with him. They were his men and he was their captain. They fought together and some of them died together, some of them under his very hands. It was never about that, finding love or something like that. It was something restricted to that place, that time. In normal, everyday life, he didn’t see himself that way and never had, a notion that had been strongly reinforced after having witnessed his mother’s reaction to Harry coming out years back. His father hadn’t been in the picture to offer his reaction, whatever that might have been, but John still remembers the screaming matches between his mother and sister and coming out of his room to snarl at the pair of them on nights before exams and rugby matches. And while it was completely regular for blokes to jerk off together in Afghanistan, or lend a hand now and then, coming out as openly queer wasn’t exactly the done thing. The understanding was that you did it because there weren’t any women around, but that if there were, that would obviously be the preference. Official tolerance notwithstanding. Even beyond all that, though, John just didn’t see himself that way, as someone who would have a romantic relationship with a bloke. 

But then he’d been invalided out and found himself back in London and the bland surreality of everyday life again, and Sherlock had saved him in a way he hadn’t realised he needed saving. While he was living, John never would have sat himself down, quizzed himself on the precise nature of his feelings for Sherlock. All he knew was that no one else mattered as much. It stopped being worth the struggle of trying to balance life with Sherlock and a girlfriend on top of it. He hated to say it, but the girlfriends always ended up feeling so extraneous. No one could hold a candle to Sherlock for the sheer level of interest he brought into everything. And if John had been – overtly – into blokes, then no one could have held a candle to Sherlock on that front, either. John’s never minded his own looks. He even thinks he’s rather handsome in certain lights. He cleans up well, even if his eyes are a bit too pouchy and he has a tendency to put on weight in the middle. His arms and legs are hard with muscle, and even with a bit of extra he looks just fine without a shirt on. Sherlock, on the other hand… his looks went far beyond ‘just fine’. Sherlock was like a god carved out of marble, as muscular as John, but it was spread out over one hundred and eighty-three centimetres of milk-white skin, enviably long limbs, a particular leonine grace that John never could have emulated, and a face to put any model’s to shame, male or female. His heap of curls that begged for fingers in them to tug and stroke, those strange, bright, ethereal eyes, the exaggerated curve of his lips, the sharpness of the cheekbones Irene had admired. John had admired them first, though he never would have said. And then there was his mind, his razor-sharp intelligence and quick, dry wit – John lost track of all the times they’d laughed so hard together that his gut had ached. Sherlock was the best company, the best friend, the best person he had ever known, and no one could ever possibly measure up. 

But he was gone, and John’s entire life became a void, as though he’d never even existed as an insular being before Sherlock. Perhaps he hadn’t – perhaps he had only come fully into himself when Sherlock was there to draw his other facets out. But Mary was there, sitting in the void and unafraid of it, willing to listen, to hold his hand and let him talk and talk and talk, brushing his apologies aside. 

That one night, though, she had jolted him out of his pained reverie by saying, when a lull had fallen, “You loved him.” Her voice was gentle as John turned startled eyes to her face. Her gaze hadn’t wavered. “Didn’t you.” It was not a question. “Of course you loved him. It’s all right to tell me.” 

John’s hands had been locked together, his knuckles white in the lamplight. He’d cleared his throat, looking at them. “Yeah,” he’d said, his voice rough. “I did.”

“That’s got to stop.” Mary’s voice hadn’t changed, not precisely, or not in any outward way that he could detect, and yet it was completely different. She sounded entirely calm and still very gentle, but beneath that there was something new. Something rather like steel. 

John had raised his eyes to hers. “What?” he’d asked, feeling confused. 

Her eyes seemed to have grown cool. “That’s got to stop, and it’s going to.” She plucked her serviette off her lap and laid it on the table beside her coffee cup. “I can’t be in a relationship with someone who doesn’t know who he loves. And frankly, I can’t date a homosexual. Or a bisexual. Whichever it is.” 

John had sat up straight, staring at her, his mouth opening. “I’m not – ”

“You just admitted it. You said you loved him.” Mary’s calm was relentless, cutting through his objection like a knife through silk. “That makes you a homosexual. At least partly. We’re going to fix that.” 

John had just sat there, his mouth still opening and closing, not even knowing which part to object to first. Finally he said, firmly, “I am not a homosexual. I’m not gay. I’ve never – ”

“And never wanted to?” Now her eyes were definitely cool, glittering in the lamplight. She’d examined him minutely. “That’s what I thought. Don’t worry. Where I’m from, we generally fix that sort of thing.” She’d raised her hand and waved it in the direction of their server, gesturing for the bill. “Let’s go back to my place,” she’d said, as though she hadn’t just accused him of being gay. “I want you to make love to me before it gets too late. We both have to work in the morning, and after this little revelation, I think we both need the confirmation.” 

That was how it began. Mary frequently initiated sex, and after that conversation John never felt he could beg off, no matter how tired or not particularly in the mood he was at the time. The thing was, he enjoyed Mary’s company and was grateful to her for her sympathy, and he was attracted to her, but not in a rampant, wild sort of way. Just a _yes, that’s nice, thank you_ sort of way. He didn’t fantasise about her on the bus or count down the seconds until he could touch her again. Neither of them were exactly twenty any more, and just as he’s got grey hair and bags under his eyes and an extra inch or two at his waist, she’s got crow’s feet and cellulite and grey roots under the platinum dye, too. She’s beautiful in her way and he thought they were well-suited. He’d just never been on fire for anyone or anything since Sherlock died. It was hard to muster more enthusiasm than he had. Of course, he wasn’t eighty, either, and still had needs, just as she did. Having a regular source of it was nice. Just nice, though. 

It didn’t help that she would make him stop and demand to know what he was thinking about sometimes. “What’s in your head, right now?” she would ask, and John would flounder for an answer. _I wasn’t really thinking about anything, particularly_ didn’t fly with Mary, so he had to have something ready to say. 

“Your breasts,” he would try, putting a hand on one of them. Or, “I was thinking about when we kissed earlier. I… liked it.” 

She tested him sometimes. Once when they were out at the shops, she’d pointed out a tall, attractive blond man browsing through the apples. “Look at him,” she’d said, the admiration clear in her voice. “He could give Chris Hemsworth a run for his money.” 

John had glanced at the bloke, eyed him up and down, and agreed, careful to keep his tone light, barely interested. “He’d make a decent Thor, if he could act. Are we out of tea bags? I can’t remember.” 

In bed that night, he’d been thrusting into her, just getting into a good rhythm when she’d interrupted. “Stop,” she said suddenly. 

John, breathing hard, had stilled himself with a bit of difficulty. “What?” 

She’d caressed his upper arms, tensed as he held himself up. “Remember the blond by the apples, at the store? The one you said looked like Thor?” 

It had been Mary who’d said that, he’d only agreed, but it wasn’t exactly an ideal moment to argue the point. “Yeah. Why?” 

“Are you thinking about him?” she’d asked. 

John had shifted his weight a little. “Well, I am _now_ , since you brought it up,” he’d said shortly. “I wasn’t before.” 

Her eyes had gleamed. “Your penis just got harder. I felt it.” 

“No, it didn’t,” he’d told her, irritated. “It’s hard because I’m inside you. And last I checked, you’re a woman, so – ”

Mary had pushed at him then. “Stop. Pull out. I don’t want you in me if you’re thinking about that guy. Even if it was an accident.” 

“Mary – ” he’d said, pained and not at all wanting to pull out just then, when he’d just been getting close to coming. “Come on – ”

“John!” She’d glared then. “I shouldn’t have to ask twice!”

John had thought, _Oh, bloody hell_ ; no bloke ever wanted to be accused of refusing to accept a woman’s refusal, not under any circumstances. He’d suppressed a frustrated sigh and dutifully pulled out, careful to hold the condom in place. He peeled it off, keeping a fist wrapped around his cock as he deposited himself next to her against the headboard, trying not to scowl as he pulled the blankets over his lap. “What’s this about, then?” he’d wanted to know. 

Mary had turned her head and smiled at him, shades of old heartbreak behind her eyes. “I just want to make sure it’s me you’re thinking of,” she’d said, sounding a bit tremulous. “I was with someone once, in the past, who loved someone else and I just can’t go through that again. I need to make sure that it’s me in your thoughts and only me. And I’m trying to help you, too. If you really want to be all the way straight, then we have to train you. Get the extra thoughts out of your head.” 

“I am not thinking any ‘extra thoughts’,” John had said through gritted teeth. 

“Can you prove that?” Her voice was silk-smooth, though innocent. 

“What? How am I supposed to _prove_ what I am or am not thinking?” he’d demanded. 

Mary pulled back the blankets, exposing him. “Let go,” she’d said, nodding at his lap. 

John did it reluctantly, feeling that he couldn’t object. His cock stood stiffly upward. 

“Think of him,” Mary told him. 

“What I am supposed to – ”

“Think of him kneeling on the floor in front of you, looking at your penis,” she instructed, her eyes watching his cock like a bird of prey. “Think of him looking up at you. Are you doing that?” 

He’d been trying to do exactly the opposite, on principle, if nothing else. “Yes.” The word was tight. 

“Imagine him leaning forward now, his eyes still on yours. Now imagine him licking it.” John’s cock twitched and Mary gave a triumphant cry. “See?” 

John put his hand back around it in self-defence. “That doesn’t count! You’ve got me all wound up and just about ready to burst – talking about anyone licking it right now is dirty pool. Of course I’m interested in that. And it’s a _cock_ , it doesn’t bloody distinguish between men and women when it’s hard and someone’s talking about blow jobs!” 

“So you’re admitting now that you’re bisexual? That’s different from what you said before!” Mary was relentless. 

John floundered. “No! I admit that I’m interested in – in _you_ going down on me. I love it when you do that.”

That changed the look on her face. Suddenly she was smiling again. “Do you?” Her hand came out to rub his chest. 

He let go of his cock to show her how hard it was, straining up against his belly. “Look at it,” he’d said. “What do you think? Of course I want you to suck it!”

Mary had never done that much, claiming to prefer straight-up sex. But then she’d bent over and taken it in hand, her lips too soft on the head but he’d groaned all the same. She’d licked it a little, then lifted her small mouth and said, “Get another condom.” 

He’d fumbled for one, spilling the box off the nightstand in his haste, rolling it onto himself in record time and then she’d turned and straddled him. He’d put an arm around her back and thrust up into her as hard as he could go, trying to ignore her questions throughout. 

She’d been gasping, perhaps surprised by his speed, his urgency. “Are you – are you thinking about me?” 

“Yeah – I’m thinking about – being inside you, how good it feels,” he’d got out, grunting at the sheer relief of it, his cock harder than rock and needing _anything_ to thrust into just then. She kept asking and he finally stopped answering, fucking her so hard that she’d started pushing at his shoulders. He’d reached down to rub at her with his thumb, just to shut her up, make her stop asking those questions, and she’d come then, leaving him finally free to do so, himself. 

He was angry about it at the time, but what could he say? He’d tried talking to her about it calmly, outside of the bedroom, just stating that he’d rather they not talk about his sexuality, that he’s quite, quite certain that he’s straight and that it doesn’t need constant questioning or ‘help’, but whenever he brought it up, Mary would frown and ask why he was so being defensive about it. “I’m not defensive,” he would say, as un-defensively as he could possibly muster. “I’m just – ”

“You’ve gone _completely_ defensive,” she would correct him. “If you’re so comfortable with the subject, then what’s the problem?” 

“There’s no problem,” he would try, lying and trying not to clench his jaw. “I just don’t like the subject. It’s boring.” 

“No, it isn’t.” Mary would correct him again, leaving him nothing to say in rebuttal. “It’s completely interesting. To me.”

He was trapped. He never, ever, ever should have admitted it to anyone, that he had loved Sherlock. He’d never even said those words to himself, much less to anyone else, and he hadn’t expected Mary to turn it on him that way. He didn’t like it, but he was also alone in the world and she was all he had that gave his life any meaning. She’d saved him, turned his life around when he was so lost and alone. He assumed that it was merely insecurity, merely wanting to be reassured of his attraction for her. She’s never told him what her grief was about, what her loss was, but he suspects it was an unhappy relationship. Maybe the guy had been a bastard. Maybe he’d cheated on her. Maybe with men. It would explain her paranoia about the possibility of him being attracted to them. Perhaps it would wear off with time, he’d told himself. There were other times when it took longer to convince her. Once she’d started up with the questions and doubts before they’d even taken their clothes off, so he’d sighed and given in. _Fine, let’s just not do it tonight, then,_ he’d said, but she hadn’t liked that, either. He’d changed into his pyjamas in the loo and when he came out, she was lying naked on her side, the blankets pushed away. He’d stopped, confused, and she’d uncurled herself, come over, and started touching him through his pyjama pants, murmuring apologies and telling him to forget it. 

That particular argument had been about their waiter in the restaurant they’d gone to. After he’d taken their orders, Mary had pestered John until he’d acknowledged that the waiter was attractive after a fashion. He’d tried saying no before, that he didn’t think someone was attractive, and it had backfired. Mary had told him that since the man in question was obviously attractive, he was in denial and that the first step to curing himself was acknowledging attraction when it was there, overriding his objection that he was not attracted to the man in question – and he hadn’t been. But he’s discovered that the more he said he wasn’t lying, the more of a liar it made him sound. After he’d sighed and given in with the waiter, said that he was sort of good-looking in a way, she’d winked at him every time the man came near their table, then punished him for it later, at home. At least until he’d come out of the loo, confused by her apologies and her touches, the kisses light as butterflies on his tensed jaw. But his body had responded, as bodies do, and in the end, when she’d pulled him back to the bed and onto her, he hadn’t protested. Her small hand had rolled a condom onto him and he’d sunk into her with gratitude by that point, and they never discussed the bloody waiter or the argument again. 

He got angry once. Just the once. He’d brought it up sometime when things were calm, over breakfast one morning. She was at the counter buttering her toast. He stirred milk into his tea and said, carefully non-confrontational, “Mary, I wondered if I could ask you a favour.” 

She turned from the counter and brought her toast to the table, sitting down and hitching in her chair. Her hair was a little mussed from sleep, her dressing gown tied tightly around herself. She smiled across the table at him. “What is it?” 

John had shifted uncomfortably. He’d planned this out, not wanting to either hurt her feelings or arouse her suspicions, but it had to be said. “Look, I know we’ve talked about it a lot already, and I know you’ve only been trying to help, but I would just rather we didn’t talk about, er, me and blokes. If you don’t mind. I’m not being defensive; it’s just not – necessary. It’s not a problem and it doesn’t affect us in any way at all.” 

She’d leaned forward. “But it _does_ ,” she insisted. “Can’t you see that, John? If you’re having fantasies about the wrong thing altogether, it has everything to do with us! That’s why I need to be sure!”

He’d wondered again if she’d been burnt by this particular thing before. “But I’m not having fantasies about anyone but you,” he said, very firmly. 

Mary had shaken her head, reaching for the teapot and pouring herself a cup. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s not that I think you’re lying to me. Only to yourself.” 

Heat had come into his cheeks at this. “I am not lying! To myself or to anyone else!” 

“You _are_. You lie about it all of the time – ”

His fist had slammed down on the table before he could stop it, making the plates and cups jump. “I am not!” 

Mary’s eyes flew open, wide and fearful. “Don’t yell at me!” she said, alarmed, and her big blue eyes filled with tears. 

Though his heart rate was elevated with anger, John had felt instantly badly. Great, he’d gone and made her cry. “I’m sorry,” he said gruffly. 

The tears overflowed and ran in rivulets down her cheeks. “My – ex – he always yelled at me,” Mary sobbed, her face contorting. She reached for a serviette and held it to her eyes. 

It was the first time she had actually mentioned an ex. “Your ex?” John asked cautiously, not wanting to make the situation worse. It was the first thing to confirm his theory that she was grieving someone who had been, possibly, abusive toward her. “Is he – is that who you were… at the group for?”

She’d nodded, still crying, and he’d felt like an absolute heel. He’d gone around the table then and knelt by her chair, taking her in his arms. “I’m sorry,” he said again, feeling like an insensitive jerk. He couldn’t ask whether the ex had been gay, cheated on her with a bloke or something. Clearly he hadn’t treated her well, and maybe that was all he needed to know. The rest would explain her reluctance to open up and talk about the man she was grieving, as well as her paranoia. She just wanted to be reassured, he thought. He could do that. It was a small price to pay. It was about her, not him. 

He never told anyone about it. It wasn’t really a problem. If anything, annoying as it was, it _was_ making their sex life more intense. And the rest of the time, Mary was everything he could have asked for. She became his partner in everything, a constant rock. She was fun, engaging, intelligent. Genuinely good company, even if no one could ever compare to Sherlock. But he didn’t have Sherlock: he had Mary. He stopped talking about Sherlock with her. She would raise the subject, though. She found an old diary of blog entries he’d never posted and used to read the entries out loud as though they were terribly amusing. He winced internally when the language got a bit too affectionate-sounding or flowery but taught himself how not to react to it, shrugging and explaining it away as poor writing. If he continued not reacting to it, Mary would eventually lose interest and move on to something else. It was the best way to reassure her, and he wanted her to be reassured. She was the one constant in his life, and he’d grown to love her. He didn’t like that one thing, the conversations about his sexuality, especially not in relation with Sherlock, but it was the only fly in the ointment. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing, her, too. After Sherlock, he couldn’t take another loss. It was worth putting up with Mary’s need for reassurance. It meant that she wanted him to want her, that was all. If he made a big deal of her asking about Sherlock, she would only think of it as grounds for her fears. 

Surely it would get better with time. 

*** 

The night after Sherlock stepped back into his life like a bull charging headlong into a china shop, John didn’t sleep. The entire aftermath felt like a hazy nightmare. He didn’t even know how Mary could go on contentedly sleeping next to him, how anyone could sleep ever again when Sherlock Holmes had come back from the dead when he’d never gone in the first place. He felt so many things that he felt ill. Of all the timing in the universe, for Sherlock to have chosen to reveal the fact that he had never died, never been put in the cold earth and wept over, the fact that he chose to interrupt John’s awkward proposal that even his potential fiancée had laughed at and interrupted and corrected, could not have been more colossally ironic.

He wanted to scream. After everything he’d been through, everything he’d suffered, all of the wasted, pointless grief – he’d nearly died of it, or so it had felt. Without Sherlock he hadn’t felt like he could live, or if he could, what the point of it would be. It would be a trudging, unwilling, weary existence, nothing more. He’d barely handled it, barely coped with the enormity of choosing to get out of bed every day and make the choice all over again to live another day. Some days he hadn’t. Those days, he’d stayed in bed. On the angry days, he’d railed against Sherlock, aloud, shouting arguments at him and parrying Sherlock’s imagined answers. _I would have stayed by your side, you idiot! I never believed the press! You never had to do that – surely you knew you had a friend in me. When have I ever let you down before, not been there for you? Why did you do this to me???_ He would curse and throw things, pounding his fists down against the mattress of the bed as he sat upright and screamed silently, only breath roaring against his eardrums. The other days were worse, the crying days, or what followed, the apathetic, unable-to-do-anything-but-stare-at-the-walls days. All of that for nothing, because his best friend, the person he’d placed ahead of every girlfriend, every other person he’d known, had faked his suicide right in front of him. It hadn’t been an accident. It had been meticulously planned. And then he’d told half of London, apparently. Everyone but John, as though John had never mattered to him in the slightest. An afterthought, easily overlooked – when he’d been the sun John had revolved around. 

And Mary, after her first shocked, angry response, had gone and bloody taken his side. As though it were nothing but an argument between two teenagers and Mary had sided with the more popular kid. The bit about his moustache. Agreeing with Sherlock that he was overreacting – _overreacting!!_ – lingering afterward to talk to Sherlock while he stormed off to get a cab. The _I like him_ , as though it mattered, as though her opinion was the deciding factor of the evening, delivered as calmly and smoothly as though John’s entire life hadn’t just been shattered. 

As he lay awake, glaring fiercely at the ceiling, Mary sleeping soundly beside him, it occurred to John to wonder why, with all of her fears particularly regarding his feelings for Sherlock, she wasn’t more upset about his reappearance. And then it came to him: she thought they were engaged. She thought he was a sure thing now, that she would never have to worry about him or his loyalties again. _That_ was how she could be so calm: she’d taken the box with his ring at some point and slipped the latter onto her finger, but hadn’t had the chance to say yes formally, or to react happily to his proposal. She didn’t know Sherlock. She knew that he was the reason John had been in a grief support group and seeing a therapist, but perhaps she just thought that he would be happy to have his friend back. No fears on her part – his ring saw to that. 

Fine, then. As morning dawned, John decided that he would make some things very clear: that his loyalties definitely lay with Mary. As for Sherlock… he didn’t even know. _Fuck off_ was how he’d ended the previous night’s conversation, and Sherlock’s lips had tightened in a way so familiar that it was like a punch in the gut. He knew he’d hurt Sherlock with it – Sherlock, who never used to show hurt. Who barely used to show that he was human. Anger, yes. Humour, absolutely. Glee at a new case or interesting problem. But hurt, sadness, vulnerability? Very rarely. Maybe when he thought Irene Adler had died, though he seemingly recovered rather quickly. He brooded and played very minor things on the violin after a particularly large fight with his brother. But seeing that, those lips tightening, a flash of genuine pain in his eyes, had made John feel both fiercely glad – after everything he’d suffered on account of Sherlock, he should damn well suffer something, himself – and at the same time, he’d felt as though he were dissolving from within. He’d waited in the taxi for Mary as she joined him, adjusting her faux-fur stole and sliding in next to him, seeming smugly pleased about something. Her seeming pleased had bothered him to no end at the moment, but it was completely secondary to everything else he was feeling. And it didn’t matter, anyway. All he knew by morning was that she was still the only sure thing in his life. He’d just asked her to marry him. And she seemed to have accepted. 

He’d shaved off the moustache later that morning, accompanied by Mary’s teasing, reading out another of those unpublished blog entries. John had kept calm, refuting her calculatedly light question about whose benefit the moustache removal was for, and flatly denying any intent to see Sherlock that day, though he couldn’t even say what his intentions beyond that day were. And had a day ever been so long? He’d sat there at his desk after the clinic had closed, still debating, then finally decided to go to Baker Street and see Sherlock. There was a lot more talking to be done, and Sherlock still owed him a proper apology. Of course that hadn’t worked out terribly well. What he knew later was that the face he saw when he opened his eyes, the smell of smoke in his lungs and making his eyes tear, was Sherlock’s. Only Sherlock’s. So little else seemed to matter at the moment. 

He remembered himself later and let Mary take him to a hospital, but he’d gone to Baker Street the next day. It took them a few days and a bomb before things started to feel anything like the way they had before, but after that first awful week, everything seemed to settle again. Sherlock was a little different than he’d been before. He was quiet, but not silent. More introspective, but never in full retreat, never impassive and just not there. He started working again and inviting John to come along to crime scenes and that had been fantastic. He and Mary seemed to get along, and she didn’t complain when Sherlock would call to request John’s presence. 

Her seeming acceptance of Sherlock still baffled John a little, but he wanted to be able to accept it without question, so he did. He was careful to divide his time well, and if he spent a lot of time with Sherlock, he made very sure to either invite Mary along or make it up to her later. A week or two after the fire incident, he and Sherlock went out for dinner and he finally asked, gruffly, what had happened during those two long years. Sherlock had sat there, staring at the candle flickering between them, his long fingers loosely woven together, hunching forward a little. He was silent for so long that John thought perhaps he hadn’t heard the question. But eventually he said, not moving his eyes from where they were focused on the flame, “Can we just… leave it be?” 

John had blinked across the table at him. “Of course,” he’d said, automatically. “If you don’t want to talk about it… it would just… could you give me some broad strokes, at least?” 

Sherlock had told him some of it, then. He talked about some of the groups he’d taken down, some of the places he’d been. Mycroft’s necessarily minimal involvement. When he fell silent again, John didn’t push him to elaborate. 

“I see,” he’d said, keeping his voice carefully even. “Thank you for telling me.” 

Sherlock seemed to take a particularly long time choosing his next words, glancing up at John from beneath his lashes when he finally said them. “I’ll tell you all of it one day.” 

John’s heart seemed to twist peculiarly at this, but he’d just smiled a bit, shaken his head and said, “I’d like that. But no rush.”

Sherlock had nodded, accepting this without comment, and changed the subject. 

They spent seven months planning the wedding, the three of them. To be honest, it was Sherlock who did most of the work, though, a fact that continually surprised John. It hardly seemed like his area. And they still took cases and ran through London’s streets and alleys with abandon, and John felt alive again. Too alive. The only major incident that occurred with Mary with regards to Sherlock happened that February, not long after the snow had melted. They had all been knee-deep in wedding planning when Lestrade phoned, interrupting, to call them to a crime scene in Piccadilly Circus. It had taken three days, concluding with a heart-pounding rooftop foot race, a shoot-out on top of a bank tower, and he and Sherlock grinning madly at each other at its conclusion. They’d gone out for dinner after, John’s heart rate never settling entirely as they ate, and then he’d caught a taxi with a little more reluctance than he should have had, and went home to Mary. She was in bed but not sleeping yet when John came in. He’d stripped off his coat, then his jumper and jeans and everything else, then lifted the blankets and crawled onto Mary, his cock already hard and insistent. She’d laughed a little. 

“Goodness,” she said, as he kissed her neck and started rubbing himself against her. She was on birth control then and they still used condoms most of the time, but there had been a slip or two and that night was looking like a ready candidate for another such slip – he was already so hard that the thought of rolling off her to retrieve a condom from the night stand was practically angst-inducing. “What’s brought this on, then?” Mary asked breathily, her hands stroking down his sides. 

He was probably sweaty from all the running but too aroused to really care at the moment. “Nothing,” he said into her skin. “I missed you.” He’d gently pushed her knees aside then and entered her as slowly as he could make himself, giving her a moment to adjust. Normally he was better about foreplay and such, but she wasn’t complaining and he needed it badly, feeling that he couldn’t possibly wait much longer without bursting. 

She let him sink root-deep into her, then begin to slide himself in and out maybe four or five times before saying, “Really? You missed me?” 

It wasn’t playful; it was a genuine question. “Of course,” John said, his eyes closed, his hips still moving. 

Mary paused for a moment, then said, “I don’t believe you.” 

He opened his eyes, making himself focus on what she was saying. “What?” His breath was already coming faster, shaking. 

Mary shook her head. “I don’t believe you,” she repeated flatly. “Stop. Get off.” 

John groaned. “Mary – God, do we have to do this _now?_ Please, I just need – ”

“What?” She was sharp, her blue eyes a bit hard. “What or who do you need, John? I don’t believe this has a single thing to do with me. Get off me!” 

He could have sobbed with frustration, but dutifully, painfully pulled himself out of her body and turned onto his back. Trying not to glare at the ceiling, he asked, through gritted teeth, “Care to elaborate?” 

Mary adjusted her nightgown, pulling it down, and turned on her side to face him, her head propped up on her hand. “I’m just saying, you came home in this mood. Were you really thinking about me while you were off doing whatever you were doing with Sherlock?” 

This again. This subject hadn’t raised its ugly head in _months_. Not since before Sherlock came back. John made himself exhale carefully, then said, “Yes. I am not turned on by spending time with criminals or by eating dinner. I was thinking about you in the taxi, that’s all.” 

Mary shook her head again. “No,” she said simply. “You were turned on by running around and having adventures with Sherlock. That’s the truth.” She waited, her eyes scanning his face, waiting to see if he would deny it. 

And he couldn’t. The words refused to come out, lodged in his throat. “Are you calling me a liar?” he finally got out, feeling half-strangled by the things he couldn’t say. 

She was gentle. “I’m saying that you’re not very good at knowing yourself, love.” Her hand slid over and found his cock and he moaned without being able to help himself. “I love this,” she told him, her eyes on his face and very sincere. “I love feeling you inside me. But I need to know that it’s for me. Can you understand that?” 

He found it difficult to breathe or think with her touching him when he was that hard. “Yeah.” The word came out strained. 

“And this _isn’t_. This is about Sherlock.” Mary let go of him and he honestly could have cried. “I can’t touch you when it’s for him.”

“It’s not for him,” John said, as firmly as he could, turning his head at last to look her in the eye, trying to sound as convincing as he possibly could – and believing he meant it, too. “It – okay, so it might be about the adrenaline, a bit. But it’s not about Sherlock.” 

Mary absorbed this, nodded a bit, then said, “But it’s still not for me, then. So tonight is a good opportunity to train yourself. If you’re going to be my husband, your desire needs to be for me. _Only_ me. The adventure is over, so that will die out on its own soon enough.” She indicated his erection with a nod of her chin. “You’re not going to touch yourself, either. Not while your thoughts are out of control.” 

“Mary – Jesus,” John said angrily, letting go of his cock. “Are you trying to kill me?” 

Mary’s eyes filled with tears. “No!” she said, sounding upset. “I’m trying to marry you! I just can’t marry someone who doesn’t know what he wants!” 

“I want _you_ ,” John had tried, turning and reaching for her, but she pushed his hand away. 

“Prove it, then,” she said, her eyes still glassy. “If you want me enough, you’ll wait until things are right between us. For me, John. Don’t touch yourself. Wait until tomorrow, when things are clearer in your head. Do it for me.”

And that was it: he couldn’t argue that, couldn’t refuse that request. So he’d bitten back his comments about how his balls might have fallen off by time she decided she wanted it, turned the other way, and tried his damnedest to ignore the ache and go to sleep. She lay awake next to him, obviously waiting for him to go to sleep first so that she could monitor, make sure that he wasn’t sneakily jerking himself off. It took nearly an hour for him to calm himself enough to sleep, the ache feeling cold and heavy in his unspent testicles, his cock softer than it had been but still unhappily semi-hard. Death by blue balls was fictional, of course, but every bloke who’d ever experienced certainly believed otherwise. Not being allowed to get himself off was the worst of it. It already would have been second-best compared to actually fucking someone, but not being permitted to come at all was infinitely worse. Nonetheless, he finally managed to relax a little, and Mary slid over and curled herself in behind him. 

He dreamt of Sherlock in a way that he hadn’t since before Sherlock’s supposed death, and then it had only happened every so often, in ways that John told himself at the time were only happening because he’d gone so long without sex. He dreamt that it was Sherlock’s longer, leggier form snaked behind and around him, his fist closed over John’s cock and pumping away at it in long, firm strokes, touching John exactly the way he needed, the press of his own erection fit snugly into the curve of John’s arse. He’d had that dream before, always wondering later how his subconscious mind even knew what it would feel like to have another bloke’s cock pressed up against the split of his arse like that, but evidently his imagination was well up to the task. He woke as he was coming in the dream, gasping, and it was his own hand on his cock, not Sherlock’s and certainly not Mary’s. 

She was awake, shifting behind him. “Oh, _John_ ,” she said, her voice creaky with sleep, both disappointed and a bit disgusted. “Why couldn’t you have waited?” 

“I’m sorry,” he panted. “Couldn’t help it – it was a dream – ”

“A dream about Sherlock,” Mary said, the disappointment still there along with a touch of acid. 

He tried denying it. “No, it w – ”

“You said his name.” Mary moved away from him and switched on the lamp on her side of the bed, leaving him feeling stunned and exposed. 

He’d made a mess in his pyjama pants and shame was washing over him in waves. He sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed, his shoulders hunched. “Did I really?” he asked, cringing. “I don’t know why – ” He couldn’t think of anything else to say, any reason to explain it away. He’d pinched the bridge of his nose. “Jesus.” 

“John.” Mary’s voice was thick with disappointment. “This is what I’m talking about. Obviously you had some sort of crush on him or something. You have to train yourself out of it. If you love me, you’ll do that for me. For _us_.” 

He’d felt actual tears of embarrassment sting the backs of his eyes. “I don’t know what to say.” He felt wretched. “It’s not like I ever meant to dream about him like that.”

Mary came over then, kneeling behind him and leaning on his shoulders. “It’s all right,” she said then, her tone gentler. “Everyone has crushes. But you’re marrying _me_. And that’s good, because I’m the solution to your problem. You know Sherlock. He would _never_ think of you that way. He doesn’t do that sort of thing at all. You know that. He’s not like other people. He doesn’t know what it means to love someone. Look how badly he hurt you when he disappeared on you like that. But you have me now, and that’s a beautiful thing. We love each other. We desire each other. We’re good together, and we’re happy. This thing has to go, though, and if you work at it, it will. I’ll help you.”

John hadn’t known what to say, but he’d twisted his fingers together. “You don’t – think less of me for – this?” 

“No,” Mary told him, gentler still. “I get it. He’s attractive, in his own, odd way. But he could never give you that. You know that. And I can, and I want to. And it’s fine, really. You can still be his friend. But I’m your lover, your partner, your fiancée, and that’s _got_ to be clear for both of us. I can’t go through what I went through with my ex again. Don’t ask me to do that. I won’t. You’re not him, though. We can make this work. But you’re going to have to be honest about this, with yourself and with me. Don’t go telling me it’s the adrenaline when it’s really Sherlock.” 

John had nodded, his stomach still in knots. “I’m not gay,” he said heavily. “I never – I’ve never so much as touched another man. I’ve never wanted to – not really. I’ve never seen myself that way. With anyone. I mean – I could have, if I’d wanted to, and I never did.” 

“It doesn’t change the facts.” Mary was inexorable. She’d kissed his shoulder then. “Go to sleep, darling. Tomorrow you can try again: you’ll go out on a case with Sherlock, and this time you’ll make sure that you channel your thoughts the right way, so that it’s me and only me in your mind when you come home. Trust me, I’d like to make love again, too. But we can’t until this is cleared up.”

John could hardly believe his ears. “You _want_ me to go out and – get fired up on a case?” he asked dubiously. 

“As long as you make sure you’re thinking of me when the arousal starts,” Mary told him. “Because I’ll know. Trust me on that.” 

John sat there, wondering if it was even possible to control his own arousal, but at the same time, he really, _really_ wanted to have sex again sometime soon. And be permitted to finish, too. “Okay,” he said, not feeling at all confident about his ability to rule his brain and body that way. Then again, he’d always managed to restrain himself in Afghanistan. Surely he could make sure that he didn’t let himself feel attracted to Sherlock on either a conscious or subconscious level. 

So he’d kept to his side of the sitting room at Baker Street the following day as Sherlock and Mary planned the seating arrangements, his balls still aching unhappily despite the dream, scrolling through Sherlock’s website on his phone to suggest potential cases. Once he’d finally succeeded in convincing Sherlock that he really did want to skip out on wedding planning for a case, they’d gone and saved Bainbridge, even if they hadn’t solved the murder, and that had been nearly as good. He’d repeated to himself in the taxi that he’d been the one to save things, that even Sherlock relied on him for that sort of thing. He remembered Sherlock’s look of confused but automatic obedience as he’d taken off his scarf at John’s barked demand, and he started getting hard there in the cab. _Oh, no,_ he thought, and a flood of forbidden images of Sherlock filled his brain and hardened his cock at the same time. _Mary. Think of Mary._ He managed to keep her face firmly in mind, at least on the surface, and that time when he got into the flat, he’d found her in the sitting room and backed her into a wall, kissing her deeply and pressing himself to her until she’d acquiesced breathily and let him strip her then and there. He remembered how okay-but-not-exciting their sex life had been before Sherlock came back as he thrust into her there against the wall, holding one of her legs up around his hip, and thought vaguely that if whatever it was that he was trying not to feel for Sherlock was fuelling what he definitely did feel for Mary, then surely it was a good compromise, wasn’t it? It was helping things, not hurting them. He could do this, train himself to channel it into Mary and Mary alone. He just had to be careful. 

And so it had been working: Mary’s paranoia mostly stopped, and his friendship with Sherlock continued uninterrupted, and in general things went as well as they possibly could have. John failed every so often, was forced into admitting aloud to Mary when she questioned him that he had not, in fact, had her in mind. Occasionally things like that even happened when all three of them were together – Mary would catch his eye and clear her throat a little and John would realise that he’d been hanging a little too attentively on Sherlock’s words or even, worse, staring at him when he wasn’t looking. When that happened, John would swiftly rein himself in, make a point of going to Mary and touching her somehow, trying to comfort or reassure her, and if she brought it up later, apologising. The wedding went off smoothly enough, and if he was a little bored on the honeymoon, he certainly knew better than to let it show. He and Mary mostly talked about the bombshell of her unexpected pregnancy, and John silently kicked himself for those times when he’d slipped and, in his impatience, overlooked the condom. He lectured himself with great frustration about foolishness of trusting only one method of birth control, but he’d had the sense not to express this to Mary, either. They hadn’t even talked about having kids and somehow he’d just assumed they were both on the same page about that, about not wanting them. Evidently not. 

There were a few other things, too. Mary was a little too fond of correcting his perceptions, making him doubt what he thought he knew. He would say that it had taken an hour and a half to get the groceries, very sure of what time he’d started and finished, and she would correct him and say it had been an hour, making him squint in confusion and check his watch and attempt to argue, only to have Mary override him. It was very annoying, but worse, he never knew in the end who had been right. She did it with times, with colours – he once complimented her on a shirt he considered green and she informed him that it was blue – with stories of events that they’d experienced together when he re-told them to their friends. It was irritating but what John disliked the most was doubting his own perceptions during and after the fact. He never used to do that before Mary, second guess himself like that. She would occasionally even correct him about the way he feels about things, telling him that he wasn’t angry when he knew very well that he was, or acting as though his interpretation of someone’s actions was completely off when he was sure he’d interpreted the situation correctly. 

There was another bump the day after his stag night. Mary hadn’t liked the fact that Sherlock had planned an evening for only the two of them. It wasn’t normal, she’d said, pointing out that most men get together with a group of friends, not just one. “It’s not supposed to be a date, after all,” she said. “Are you sure that Sherlock is clear on the concept?”

“Yes,” John had said firmly. “And I don’t want to spend my stag night any other way. He’s got this whole thing planned, from what I hear, and I don’t want to spoil it. Do you know how rare it is to get Sherlock to do anything sociable at all? He wouldn’t even come to my birthday dinner, the last time I had a birthday when he was still around. We did our own thing and it was great, he took me to this sushi place on the top floor of some building and stuff, but as soon as it was a group thing, he wanted no part of it.” He’d thought of telling Mary about the video, but decided not to. Somehow that was too private, too special to him, even now. “He wouldn’t come if anyone else was coming,” he says instead. “Greg’s working anyway, and there’s no one else I would want.”

Mary had crossed her arms. “So the two of you are just going to go out and get drunk on your own,” she said, her expression very pointed. “Does that sound wise to you, if you’re trying to make sure you steer clear of any untoward temptations?” 

“For God’s sake, Mary, I am not ‘tempted’ by him!” John had burst out, frustrated with the paranoia. “I lived with the man for a year and a half – I’ve seen him in every possible state of dress or undress and obviously _that_ didn’t do it, since nothing ever happened, so I really can’t see why you’re so obsessed with this!” 

She hadn’t backed down an inch, nor called him out for shouting for once. “Things are different now,” she said, an edge in her voice. “You thought you’d lost him. That brings a different side into things. And you’re about to get married, which is the beginning of a whole new chapter in your life. Throw some alcohol and nostalgia into the mix and anything could happen. That’s all I’m saying: be careful, would you?” 

He’d gritted his teeth. Once they were married, surely this would stop. The need for constant reassurance. “I will,” he said. “I always am.” 

She’d smiled then. “Okay,” she said, and put her hands on his face. He wasn’t in much of a mood for having a snog just then, not when she was pulling her Sherlock-jealousy act, but if he turned it down she would think he was angry and if she thought he was angry, she would think there was a reason for her paranoia and he didn’t want that. So he kissed back and she’d responded warmly. “I can’t wait to marry you,” she told him, smiling up into his face, her eyes glowing. She’d waited for him to agree, then added, “I don’t care how drunk you are when you’re done tonight. I don’t care if you can’t even get it up. Just come and crawl into bed with me. I won’t even be angry if you snore so loudly the entire neighbourhood can hear.” 

She was smiling, teasing him – which he always hated; a man can’t control his snoring, after all – but he’d made himself smile back. Then, of course, they’d got arrested and put in detox overnight and he hadn’t been able to do what she’d asked, thinking of it and pinching the bridge of his nose as they were released in the morning. Mary had been predictably furious, her eyes teary even as she shouted at him. In the end she’d demanded a full account of the evening, and when he got to the Rizla game he’d stumbled a little and she’d pounced on it. 

“Jesus, Mary, nothing _happened_ ,” he’d muttered, unable to look her in the eye. 

“Nothing? _Really?_ ” she’d demanded in return, her hands on her hips. “You were so drunk that you got put in _prison_ and you’re telling me that Sherlock, who flirts with you every second he gets – ” John hadn’t even interrupted to tell her what a ridiculous statement this was - “didn’t instigate a single thing with you? Neither of you ever once touched the other? There were no hugs, no casual arms around each other, _nothing_ like that?” 

He hadn’t been able to lie directly about that, not when pinned to specifics like that. He’d felt his face suffuse with heat and mumbled, “Not exactly nothing, but – nothing like what you’re…” Still horribly hungover, he’d rubbed his gritty eyes hard. “It wasn’t anything – ”

“Like precisely what I’m asking about?” Mary had finished for him, her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Yes or no, John: did you or did you not, at any point, touch him?” 

John thought of the moment when he slipped from his chair and steadied himself on Sherlock’s knee. (Was that really all it had been, or had some part of him been subconsciously reaching for Sherlock?) He swallowed hard and thought of his arm draped casually along the back of the sofa behind Sherlock’s shoulders. How would Mary classify that, precisely? He knows without being told: she would call it too damned close. And perhaps she would be right. “A – little,” he said, his mouth dryer than sand. “But nothing happened, Mary. I _swear_ it.” 

She’d glared at him, her arms still tightly crossed. “And _this_ is why I didn’t want the two of you off drinking alone,” she’d said in a tone of disgust. “God, John! I’m so disappointed in you! You promised you would come home to me, and instead you wind up practically snogging Sherlock and spending the night in prison with him. What the hell am I supposed to think of that?” 

John finally lost his temper. “Think what you want!” he snapped. “Regardless of what it is, you’re the only person I’ve slept with since we met, and the only person I’ve wanted to, and if you want to decide that you just don’t believe anything I ever say, then that’s your choice!” 

The tears returned in full force and twin rivers slipped instantaneously over Mary’s cheeks. She buried her face in her hands and sobbed, crying too hard to speak. John stood there, still angry, a vein in his forehead pulsing, but seeing her like this always made him feel like absolute shit. He stood there, debating with himself what to do for a long minute. “Oh, _John_ ,” Mary wept into her hands. She raised a red, tear-streaked face to look at him. “Does that mean you want to call off the wedding?” 

She sounded utterly miserable. The wedding was four days off and John felt like a complete bastard. “No, of course not,” he said, her misery seeping into him. “I love you. I’m just really – I wish you wouldn’t doubt that. Doubt me. It makes me feel like you don’t – ”

“Oh, sure, let’s make this all about _you_ ,” Mary said, glaring at him, and he’d sighed. 

“Look, I’m sorry,” he said, careful to keep his voice gentle. “I really am. Please don’t cry.” 

She’d stopped eventually, but that night in bed she hadn’t let him near her, saying that she still felt ‘too fragile’. She always hated the thought of him taking care of matters on his own, and he hadn’t wanted to press the point and upset her all over again, so he’d gone to sleep aching and unsatisfied, sneakily having a wank in the shower the next morning and denying it when she asked over breakfast. She’d refused him again that night, but had allowed it the night after that, the night before their wedding. 

It was just a temporary hitch. Overall, it was a great relationship. She saved him when he needed saving, and all relationships take work. He was careful to consider her feelings and not raise his voice, as it always upset her. That ex of hers really must have been awful, he’d thought many times, hating it when he made her cry with his thoughtlessness, forgetting about it and getting impatient with her about something. Every couple has their issues, though. He was lucky, he told himself, over and over again. Very lucky. He told himself this daily, remembering what it could have been like if he’d never met Mary, if she’d never walked through the doors of his grief group and taken him into her life. He had been so lost. He was lucky indeed that she had found him. 

This was what he’d repeated like a mantra, reminding himself that all relationships take compromise, and that theirs was no different from anyone else’s. It was all good. 

And then Mary shot Sherlock. 

*


	2. Chapter 2

**Part II**

 

John is sitting in Sherlock’s darkened hospital room, listening to the regular beeping of his vital signs monitor. The room feels darker than it actually is. He feels numb. His entire world has just fallen spectacularly to pieces in a way he had hoped it never would or even could again. It’s nearly as bad as when Sherlock died – as he’s just about done twice in the past week now. Rushing into Magnussen’s suite and finding Sherlock on the floor, blood welling around the bullet hole in his chest, had been a nightmare come vividly to life. In one nanosecond, he was back on the pavement outside Bart’s Hospital, the sound of pigeon wings flapping in the air filling his head, his heart in his mouth. The fact that Sherlock had lived through the night was nothing short of a miracle. John had barely budged from his side, no matter how much Mary railed at him over it on the phone and in her angry texts. He’d made his feelings very clear in his responses: _He’s my best friend and I’m not leaving him._ No justifications; none were needed. It had nothing to do with Mary’s fears about his sexuality and everything to do with the fact that seeing that bullet hole made everything crystal clear: Mary was wrong. It’s not just a crush, a weakness of his not-entirely-straight sexuality. He loves Sherlock, loves him fiercely and always has. Always will. He’s married to Mary, yes. He loves Mary. But he also loves Sherlock. He can call it platonic, call them best friends and nothing more. That’s the only option available. But he will not leave Sherlock’s side when he’s been shot. 

By Mary. This second, devastating revelation has called his feelings about Mary into question, too. _Does_ he love her? Can he even love her, when he knows nothing about her? He doubts everything she has ever told him, down to the vague things she’s said about her dead ex, the reason she joined the grief group. (Why the paranoia about Sherlock, then?) There are so many questions and his brain is too numb to even contemplate the answers. Sherlock’s heart stopped there in Baker Street, and all John had said to Mary before rushing down the stairs after the paramedics was, “You stay away from him.” His voice had been harsh, and this time she hasn’t texted or called him, hasn’t tried to guilt him into coming home, and he’s grateful for the temporary reprieve. Seeing her that way, hearing her voice over the phone as Sherlock lured her into the empty house in Leinster Gardens – that was a nightmare, too. He’d sat there in the dark where Sherlock had placed him, the dull glint of the barrel of Mary’s gun catching the streetlight as she aimed it down the corridor at him, then laughed and reduced him to nothing more than a dummy. He felt as stupid as one. He hadn’t seen it. Never once. 

All of Sherlock’s vagueness and uncharacteristic refusal to talk about the shooter made sense in that nanosecond. And John had the wit to realise that Mary could never have liked Sherlock even a little bit. All of her chummy laughs and sly digs and shoulder squeezes to Sherlock’s grudging and mostly unresponsive form – all of that had been a lie. Mary must have hated Sherlock since long, long before they ever met, resenting the place he’d had in John’s life. And heart. He cannot deny the latter and doesn’t care to try; seeing Sherlock with a bullet hole over his heart made his own chest ache as fiercely as though it had been his own. He cannot love Sherlock, and yet the argument was never left in his own hands in the first place. He loves Sherlock: this is a fact. It’s not something that Sherlock needs to know. Mary is right about that one thing: Sherlock is not made for that sort of thing. He wouldn’t understand, and John would only end up making their friendship awkward and Sherlock uncomfortable. He doesn’t need to say it. But he knows it now in a way that he will never not know going forward. 

Sherlock wakes from time to time, but this time the physicians are controlling his morphine so that he can’t turn it down. John did not tell them about the past addiction; he has been monitoring the levels for himself. Sherlock could well relapse into shock if the pain grows too high. The healing process has been set back by weeks or even months because of what he did. He knew that John could stumble onto the truth for himself, find out the wrong way and potentially react very badly (he _does_ know John rather well, after all). And so he’d staged a revelation of Mary’s identity in the drama that left Sherlock bleeding out internally on the floor of Magnussen’s suite, one that he could supervise, control, even in his state. John remembers the grey steel of Mary’s gun and thinks retroactively that Sherlock was definitely armed during that entire thing. He never would have let Mary shoot him. And for having done all this, he is paying with his own body, with a heart that needed to be defibrillated twice in short order, his stitches split open, his heart and liver both leaking blood into his chest cavity. He’d damn near killed himself to ensure that John knew the truth, discovered it in a way wherein Sherlock could keep him safe, act as a buffer between John’s shock and rage and Mary. 

He hasn’t spoken to Mary since Sherlock collapsed at Baker Street, and he does not know if he will ever want to again. Her presence in his life had been the glue that held him together when the hole of Sherlock’s absence was trying to rip him apart. Some part of him still feels everything that he felt, but he doesn’t know how to stitch together the things he thought he knew about Mary with the things he knows about her now. Doesn’t know which pieces to keep and which to reject as false. It doesn’t work, and his brain isn’t functioning these days. All he does is sit beside Sherlock’s bed and watch over him while he sleeps, unconscious more often than he’s awake. Which is easier, really, because John has no idea what there even is to say. He feels blank. The only thing that is clear in any way is that where Mary was once the one thing he thought he could rely on absolutely, it now occurs to him that perhaps this is a completely foolish concept. That no one and nothing is reliable. Everyone and anything can and will turn on a person and betray him. 

Sherlock has come very close to proving himself that way, though. His current medical condition bears witness to that much. John can’t help but feel wary, regardless. He still feels the shock of the loss after Sherlock’s faked death, and even knowing that Sherlock hadn’t exactly had a spectacular time taking down the terrorists, John’s sense of loss and grief is still vivid. Those feelings don’t just disappear, it would seem. He knows from Sherlock’s reluctance to speak about those two years that it was bad, and knowing that has softened his anger about the faked suicide, but having witnessed Sherlock’s very near brush with a very real death has brought all of those feelings to the surface again and it frightens him, knowing how strongly he feels about it all. Sherlock’s fake death. Sherlock’s almost real death. Sherlock in general. 

There is too much to think about, too much to feel. Sometimes John feels that his head or chest will explode with it all. He doesn’t want to think about Mary, about what he’s supposed to do about her. He doesn’t want to let himself think about how much Sherlock did for him, or what it’s cost him to do it. So John passes his days feeling his arse grow numb no matter how many times he shifts or trades the two visitors’ chairs around to change seats. He refuses to leave Sherlock unprotected. The hospital staff, once they realised he was serious about refusing to leave, offered him the other bed to sleep in. Sherlock is on an IV, but they bring meals for John. He only permits himself to sleep in fits and starts, not trusting the hospital’s security to keep a proper eye. Lestrade visited on the fourth day after Sherlock’s re-admittance, told John flatly that he looked like crap, and since then has had an officer posted outside Sherlock’s room at all times. John sleeps at night now, which is a relief, honestly, but he still doesn’t trust that a singular police officer would slow Mary down in the slightest if she were to choose to come back to finish Sherlock off. 

He has no idea what she’s thinking and can’t bring himself to consider it. The very thought of her fills him with grief and rage in a mixture so potent he feels it could choke him. When he thinks of her face, he gets such a mix of images and they all seem like different people to him. The expression on her face after they’ve made love – and that one makes him feel nauseated at the moment. The look she’d had as she’d squinted down the corridor, head cocked to one side before proclaiming him a dummy, an obvious trick. The closed wariness on her face as she’d stood near the mantle at Baker Street, her hands twisting around backwards in front of herself, as though trying to look vulnerable and only coming off as defensive, like a trapped snake. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to think now, supposed to feel. He doesn’t even know what he _does_ feel. 

Sherlock stirs, his eyelids fluttering, his head turning automatically in John’s direction. “John – ” 

His voice is hoarse from the dry hospital air and disuse both. “I’m here,” John says automatically, leaning forward so that Sherlock won’t have to turn his head too far or strain himself in order to see him. 

Sherlock’s shoulders relax very slightly, as they always do once he’s confirmed for himself that John is still with him, that he isn’t alone. This, more than anything, has confirmed for John that Sherlock is afraid of Mary, no matter what he said at Baker Street. John still doesn’t entirely understand why Sherlock said all that, about Mary having ‘saved’ him, but Sherlock is hardly up for an extended discussion on the subject at the moment. Or any other subject, for that matter. His eyes are only half-open, his mind probably still lost to the twilight world of morphine. He mumbles John’s name again. 

“I’m here,” John repeats, reaching through the rails of the bed and closing his fingers firmly around Sherlock’s wrist as a tangible way to let him feel his presence. “Are you okay?” 

Sherlock makes an indistinguishable sound, then mumbles, “Don’t go…”

He says this every time, and every time John tells him the same thing. “I’m not going anywhere,” he says firmly. “I’m not going to leave you. I’m right here.” 

It could only be his imagination, but it seems to him that the corners of Sherlock’s mouth tighten very slightly into a smile even as his eyes drift closed again. 

John stays there, holding his wrist for the rest of the afternoon, eventually falling asleep with his head turned sideways on the rail. 

*** 

Sherlock is forced to remain in the hospital for six weeks. During the second, Mycroft Holmes appears one day with a large suitcase that does not belong to John filled with most of his clothing, three books that he would count among his favourites if asked, his collection of DVDs, and a laptop. He walks into the room without knocking, makes brief eye contact with John, then beckons imperiously to someone standing out in the corridor. A young ginger-haired bloke in a suit that likely cost a year of John’s salary at the clinic walks in and sets the suitcase down beside John’s chair, gives him a quick nod and retreats to the corridor again, ducking his head a second time at Mycroft. 

John rousts his sluggish thoughts and gets his tongue organised for speech. “What’s this, then?” 

“Your things.” Mycroft is brief. “You’ll need more than a few changes of clothes if you plan to go on staying here.”

How had he known that all he’s got with him were some old things that Mrs Hudson brought from Baker Street, things that he’d left behind? Better not to even ask. Though another question occurs. “How did you get into my flat?” he asks. 

Mycroft rolls his eyes and does not deign to give an answer to what he clearly considers a stupid question. 

All right, then. “Was Mary there?” John asks instead. 

“No.” Mycroft’s tone is clipped. “Obviously my involvement would go better unnoticed by your… wife.” He shifts his gaze to Sherlock, who is asleep. “How is he?” The question is brief, pre-emptive, but John suspects a real concern to it. 

He thinks of throwing the question back on Mycroft and asking why he doesn’t just ask the hospital staff, but then it occurs to him that Mycroft may be asking because he actually respects John’s expertise in the area. Besides, he knows Sherlock better than any of the doctors or nurses. “It’s coming along slowly,” he admits. “I’d like if the morphine level could be lowered for obvious reasons, but he’s still in a great deal of pain and I don’t think it would be wise.”

Mycroft’s eyes stay on Sherlock’s slowly rising and falling chest. “Do they know?” he asks, his tone even. 

“No. And they’re not going to. He’ll be all right. I’ll see to that.” John keeps his tone firm. This is not for Mycroft to interfere with, no matter how concerned he may be. 

Mycroft turns away from his brother, leaning on his umbrella. “About that,” he says, his gaze cool and rather direct. “How long is that offer good for?”

“Offer?” John repeats. He shifts in his chair. “What do you – ”

“To see to Sherlock.” Mycroft’s fingers drum over the knuckles of his opposite hand. “Are you going to see him through this, or should I hire some homecare to look after him once he’s been released? Are you planning to stay here with him in the hospital for the full duration of his stay, or… will you be going back to the flat?” 

_Back to Mary_ , is what he’s really asking. “I’m not going anywhere,” John says, looking at Sherlock’s face. “I’ll stay with him.”

“For how long?” Mycroft’s voice is measured and John thinks back to when he first met Mycroft and his casual question about a ‘happy announcement’. Is he really still asking this? 

“At least until he’s recovered,” John says, keeping his eyes on Sherlock’s face. “You don’t need to hire homecare. I’ll be there with him. I… don’t know about after that, but I’ll look after him until he’s all right again.” 

There is a short silence as Mycroft evidently weighs his words. “Even if it takes until Christmas, or beyond that?” he asks. “I understand that he did considerable damage to himself upon his ill-devised escape.” 

“No matter how long it takes,” John repeats. “I’ll stay with him.” He turns his head and looks at Mycroft. “You don’t need to offer me money,” he says bluntly. “I don’t need to be paid for this. He’s my best friend and he’d do the same thing for me.” 

“Understood,” Mycroft says. He gestures to the suitcase. “If you require anything else, please let me know.” With that, he turns and leaves the room without waiting for a response from John. 

He’ll find a way around it, of course. John has known for years (since Sherlock told him) that Mycroft always finds ways to help uninvited, whether depositing money in either or both of their accounts, paying for Mrs Hudson’s trips to the store to buy groceries for them, or something else. They’d had a small roof leak in the attic one year and a repair team appeared without any of the three of them having called, and they were never presented with an invoice when the work was finished. Mycroft does have his uses. 

The six weeks go by slowly. Sherlock recovers a little at a time. By the fourth week he is well enough to be bored and complaining. They don’t talk about Mary or the confrontation at Baker Street. Sherlock does not question John’s constant presence, nor Mary’s absence. No more is said about lives having been ‘saved’ or Mary being a ‘client’ of theirs. Instead, Sherlock criticises the food and says that he misses John’s cooking, wants to know when he’ll be allowed caffeinated tea again, when his stitches are coming out, and most importantly, when he’ll be allowed to go home. He is always careful to phrase it in the singular, not assuming that John will be accompanying him. One day John decides to finally just say it, because he can sense that Sherlock wants to ask but is hesitating. Sherlock has just said something about, “… when I’m home again,” and John takes the opportunity. 

“When we’re back at Baker Street, you can experiment on as many egg whites as you want, as long as you clean it all up before they start to stink,” he promises. 

Sherlock stops poking at the partially-uncooked egg white on his dinner tray and looks at him sharply. “‘We’?” he repeats, his gaze direct but disguising something rather uncertain behind it. “Are you coming with me?” 

It’s a valid question, John supposes, but he still feels the sting of it. He bites back several different retorts along the lines of _No, you twat: I just spent six weeks sitting on my arse and living on hospital food and getting woken up five times per night only to ditch you once you don’t have regular medical attention hovering around you night and day, what do you honestly think?_ or _What, you really think that after all this time, I’m going to go back home to the person who put you in the hospital in the first place?_ The truth is that he still doesn’t know what to think of Mary and there is no one he can talk with impartially about it. Even Ella would be bound to tell the police if she’d been told about an attempted murder, he thinks. Maybe not, but wouldn’t she be? Would patient confidentiality extend that far? He didn’t specialise in psychiatry; he doesn’t know all of the rules involved. He shifts again, crossing his knees the opposite way. “Yes,” he says, in answer to Sherlock’s question. “Of course I’m coming home with you.”

Sherlock’s eyes look impossibly blue and almost frighteningly vulnerable and his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “John – ” He stops himself, strangely emotional, and John doesn’t know what to say. 

“Come on,” he says, his voice gruff. “Someone’s got to look after you, haven’t they? I mean, do you _want_ Mycroft to hire some awful nurse to fuss over you?” 

“No,” Sherlock says instantly. “I just want you. No one else.” 

For a second, John doesn’t know what to say. They’re looking at each other, neither of them blinking, and the room feels so charged that John thinks, _We’re not actually talking about – that – are we?_ He clears his throat. “I’ll be there,” he says, his voice coming out closer to a whisper, which he didn’t mean to have happen. “I’m not going to leave you while you’re still recovering.” 

Sherlock’s gaze flicks from one eye to the other, and John thinks that he’s suppressing the urge to ask about after. Mary’s name rises silently into the air between them, but neither of them acknowledges it aloud. After a moment, Sherlock drops his gaze and nods, as if to himself. “All right,” he says. “So – when can we go home? I’m so tired of being here.” 

“I know you are,” John says dryly, feeling relieved that the dangerous moment has passed, his heart thumping oddly. “I am, too, frankly. I’ll ask.” 

“I’m off the morphine now, or almost,” Sherlock says. “The annoying one with the bald spot said that my liver has healed. My stitches have dissolved. I’m so ready to go home.”

“I’ll ask,” John repeats. “But if they say no, then we just have to accept it. I don’t want you taking any risks that don’t need to be taken this time. I know why you did it and I’m grateful – more than I can even say. But this time I want you to recover properly.” 

Sherlock nods, accepting this without argument. “All right,” he says, as meekly as John has ever heard him say anything, and John has to hide his smile. 

*** 

Sherlock is discharged three days later. John texts Mycroft to let him know, and Mycroft sends a car to collect them, along with the same ginger-haired minion to carry their things inside. He stays long enough to tell them that Mr Holmes would like them to know that if they require any manner of catering (by which John assumes he means take-away), shopping, or any other services, to please let him know directly. He hands John a crisply-cornered business card and with that, disappears back down the stairs. 

John spends the remainder of the day settling in and trying to tell himself that he’s readjusting to being back here, but the truth is that he feels as though he never left. It’s probably just because he and Mary always spent so much time here before the wedding anyway, he tells himself, but everything feels familiar in a way that doesn’t feel like a reintroduction. Just the normalcy that never went anywhere. The fact that it doesn’t feel as though he has to readjust is what feels strange. He unpacks his things into his old bedroom, spends a little time puttering around, then goes downstairs to put the kettle on and see if there’s anything on hand to make for supper. Sherlock’s said numerous times that he misses certain things that John used to make, usually while staring dismally into the admittedly unappetising muck on his tray. 

“ _You_ don’t have to eat this shit,” he would tell John, almost accusingly. “There’s a restaurant across the road. Why don’t you go eat there?”

“What, and fritter away all my savings?” John would retort, albeit lightly enough. He hardly wanted to make Sherlock feel guilty for the fact that he’s taken an extended leave of absence from the clinic. “It’s fine. I’d rather eat with you than on my own, anyway.” 

“You could always go over there, order take-away, and sneak it back in here,” Sherlock suggested once. John had snorted at the time, but a few days later he’d done just that, and Sherlock had said that it made the entire day better. That might have been the first time John had laughed since seeing Sherlock lying on the floor of Magnussen’s suite. 

He wakes Sherlock to give him a cup of (decaffeinated) Earl Grey. Sherlock looks at it sleepily and John leans down to help him sit up on the sofa, holding it to his mouth. “Earl Grey,” Sherlock says, taking the cup from him and blowing on it, his fingers tangling briefly with John’s. His eyes slant up at John. “Decaffeinated, I suppose.” 

“Yup,” John says easily, reaching for his own cup on the coffee table and sitting down carefully beside Sherlock. “Just be glad it’s not that weedy shit from the hospital.” 

Sherlock sips. “I am.” Another sip. “This is good, even for decaf. Twinings?” 

“Of course.” John made sure that Mrs Hudson had picked that up for them, at the very least. Sherlock is unsurprisingly very picky about his tea blends, particularly when it comes to his beloved Earl Greys. Lapsang souchongs, too, for that matter. 

They sit together and drink their tea in companionable silence, until Sherlock breaks it a little while later. “So,” he says, with something like his old spirit. “Sushi or Thai tonight?” 

John raises his eyebrows. “I certainly hope you’re talking take-away, though I was going to cook.” 

“I’m joking,” Sherlock says. “You don’t have to cook, if you’d rather not. You heard Mycroft’s minion: we could order in for every meal for the remainder of my convalescence, if you prefer.” 

“I don’t mind doing the cooking,” John says, though the protest is mild. “You kept saying that you missed some of the things I used to make.” 

“I know.” Sherlock sounds very slightly apologetic. “I don’t want – I mean, you shouldn’t feel you have to, just because...” He trails off, sounding unusually uncertain. 

John leans into his shoulder, just a little. “I said I don’t mind,” he repeats, his voice going a little gruff. “Mrs Hudson went round to the shops, so we’ve got food. I was thinking of making that thing with the chicken and snow peas and water chestnuts and sliced almonds that you like so much. With teriyaki sauce. But we could order in, if you’d rather.”

“No, let’s have your thing,” Sherlock decides. “If you’re sure. I won’t be much help, that’s all.” 

John actually chuckles at this. “When were you ever?” he asks rhetorically, and Sherlock is forced to smile, somewhat abashed. 

“Was I really that bad?” he asks, glancing at John from under his lashes. 

It’s a bit flirtatious and John wonders if Sherlock realises this. A feeling of warmth settles into his gut and glows there. “Not always,” he admits. “You showed great improvement over the years.” 

Sherlock says nothing to this, just smiles, still through his lashes, and John hastily gulps down the rest of his tea and gets to his feet. 

“Guess I’ll get started on that, then,” he says briskly. “Are you hungry? It’s half six, past the time when they normally fed us in the hospital.” 

“I am, a bit,” Sherlock acknowledges. “Is there any more tea?” 

“Give me your cup,” John says, and Sherlock holds it out to him. He takes it into the kitchen and refills it. He catches himself smiling as he sweetens it exactly to Sherlock’s taste and thinks, _What the hell am I even doing? I cannot flirt with him._ These are dangerous waters. He goes back into the sitting room to give Sherlock his tea, relieved that he’s got something to do in the kitchen to keep him occupied. This is going to be very interesting, indeed. 

*** 

Five days of this go by, just the two of them orbiting around one another in the flat, as though there had never been a third, as though the entire outside world has more or less ceased to exist, and John is more content than he should be. In his recovery, Sherlock has lost many of his sharp edges, his humour and best, nicest moods rising to the surface more often than not, and John allows himself to believe that it’s because of him, because he’s there. Sherlock thanks him every time he cooks or brings him tea or pulls the blanket off the back of the sofa to wrap around his shoulders or tuck over his lap. He doesn’t need much help, just a lot of rest. He can get himself on and off the sofa and in and out of bed without assistance. If he was going to wear socks, John imagines that he would need help with that, but so far neither of them has stirred outside their contented, insular existence within the flat. Even Mrs Hudson keeps to herself, occasionally bringing up a casserole or once a lasagna, but otherwise leaving them to themselves. John wonders at that, but doesn’t ask. Perhaps she thinks they could do with the time together. She always did want that, John thinks wryly. 

As for himself, he isn’t entirely sure that it isn’t happening, uncurling slowly and gently, unacknowledged so far but nonetheless there. He can feel it in the warmth of Sherlock’s smiles, in the way both their hands linger on each other’s hands or shoulders or backs. Sherlock laughs at his jokes in a way that he used to scoff at them, though he still scoffs. There’s just a softness behind his eyes that didn’t used to be there. He knows that it can’t happen, at least not if he wants to even consider the possibility of reconciling with Mary at some point, and yet it seems to be quietly unfolding anyway, enveloping them both in a certain inevitability. John has done nothing to encourage it, specifically, but neither has he done enough to dissuade it, probably. 

Regardless, all of whatever it is gets sharply interrupted one day. They’re in the loo, Sherlock sitting on the counter, waiting impatiently for John to remove his bandaging for the last time to examine the bullet hole and, he is palpably hoping, proclaim it fully healed.

“Go on, then,” John tells him. “Get your t-shirt off, if you want me to take off the bandaging.” He’s just finishing up with his teeth and spits into the sink, running the cold water and rinsing his mouth. 

Sherlock has already brushed his teeth. He hesitates for a moment, then carefully pulls his shirt off over his head, leaving his curls tousled. He tosses the shirt toward the laundry hamper, then puts his hands on his slim, well-muscled thighs in their pyjama pants and waits. 

Facing the mirror, John instantly sees why, and understands the hesitation. A wave of shock hits as he sees Sherlock’s back in the mirror. There are lines and lines cut into the skin, criss-crossing one another, some deeper than others. Whip scars, John thinks, but there’s more: a two-inch cut made by a knife, or so it looks to him, just above the hip bone on the left side. An angry red burn scar, the skin left shiny – smoothly healed, but painful-looking nonetheless. John’s mouth clamps shut, his heart in his throat. 

He can sense rather than see Sherlock looking at him, his entire demeanour tense. “Not pretty, is it,” he says, his voice sounding dry. 

John struggles to find his voice. He can’t seem to look Sherlock in the face. “My God,” he says, sounding as stunned as he feels. “Who did this to you?” 

“A few different people.” Sherlock is quiet, sounding almost ashamed of it. 

“While you – ”

“While I was away. Yes.”

A heavy stillness falls in the small room when Sherlock stops talking and John doesn’t know how to fill it, what to say. He makes himself look up at Sherlock’s face at last, higher than his with him perched on the counter the way he is. All of the levity of the past week has evaporated instantly. This is serious. Their eyes meet and Sherlock isn’t shielding his face at all, small lines formed between his eyes and at the bridge of his nose, waiting for John to react. John takes a deep breath. “I want you to tell me all of it,” he says, his voice low and mostly steady. “You said you would one day. I want to hear it.” _Need to hear it_ , he almost said. Could have said. 

Sherlock exhales and looks down. “I thought you might say that.” He thinks for a long moment. “Do you still want to look at the wound?” 

John has all but forgotten this. “Yes,” he says curtly. “And then – you’ll tell me?” 

“If you really want to hear it,” Sherlock says, his voice so low it’s barely audible. 

John shakes his head and moves to stand directly in front of Sherlock, blocking his own view of the horrific scars and occupying his hands in briskly, gently removing the bandaging from Sherlock’s chest. “I want to hear it.” He disposes of the gauze and tape and peers closely at Sherlock’s chest, trying not to notice the way Sherlock has moved his knees apart to allow John to get closer. They’re on either side of his hips and there’s a definite, mostly subconscious urge to rest his hands on them, run them up to Sherlock’s waist, lean in… (No. Focus.) “It looks pretty good,” he admits. “You could probably do with another round of bandaging, but it’s pretty well healed. If you’d rather skip it, you can. I imagine you’re a bit tired of losing chest hair every time I change it.” 

“It doesn’t matter,” Sherlock says, his face angled down toward John’s, as though willing him to look up at him. 

He can’t, though, for the dual reasons that he doesn’t want Sherlock to see how upset he is by the scars, and that their position is already far too suggestive as it is. John takes a breath and a step back. “You can put your shirt back on, if you like,” he says, trying not to sound stiff. 

Sherlock slides off the counter, reaches for it silently and puts it back on, his expression just perceptibly bothered by this somehow. Does he think that John is uncomfortable being around him without a shirt on now? If so, he would be right for two reasons, John thinks. “Can we have this discussion in the bedroom?” Sherlock asks, already moving toward the door leading into his room. “I’m tired.” 

“Yes, of course,” John says quickly, not wanting to put him off talking about it. He imagines that it could be a difficult conversation for Sherlock and the need for comfort could be all the greater. He follows Sherlock into his bedroom and tries his damnedest not to feel awkward about being there. There’s a singular chair but it’s covered in a stack of folded dress shirts that are always there. He looks around. 

Sherlock lies carefully down sideways on the bed, turning himself onto his side, and gestures at the open space remaining to John. John accepts the wordless suggestion and lies down facing Sherlock at a safe distance, more than a metre of space between them. Once John’s settled, Sherlock takes his time before beginning, his long fingers tracing over the stitching on his duvet. Finally he starts, his voice very low, his eyes on the duvet rather than on John’s face. “You knew that I went after the rest of Moriarty’s network,” he says. 

John doesn’t want to push, but it seems that Sherlock is waiting for him to acknowledge it. “Yes.”

“I didn’t tell you all of it. Not in that restaurant that night, when I first got back, or when you asked again later. I don’t know why I didn’t. I suppose it didn’t seem… relevant, perhaps.” Sherlock pauses, then his eyes come up to meet John’s. “There were snipers,” he states, sounding as though he is trying to just be matter-of-fact about it, but his face is very serious, the shadows of his cheekbones elongated in the lamplight. “Three of them. One for Lestrade. One for Mrs Hudson. One for you.”

He stops again and John feels lost. “What?” he says, feeling his brow crease. “What do you – ”

“They were waiting to see me jump,” Sherlock tells him, his eyes still on John’s, watching, probing. “If they hadn’t – and I had to make you think I was still dead. I didn’t know how long the contract would hold if any of you were to find out I was still alive. It wasn’t that I thought you couldn’t keep a secret. I just didn’t know how far the network extended, who else knew. If it was really only those three snipers or if there were others.” His fingers pluck at the stitching as John attempts to absorb this. “I killed them,” he says shortly. “All three of them. Mycroft gave me some support, mostly in terms of information. And then I went after the rest of them.” 

John is still trying to grasp this, to take it all in. One major key point is standing out to him very clearly, however. “But – that means that you never even had a choice,” he says, feeling stunned all over again. “You didn’t – ”

“I didn’t what?” Sherlock’s eyes are sharp and very blue. 

John exhales deeply. “You didn’t choose to leave me behind,” he says, feeling the old, hard-edged lump come into his throat at the thought. He remembers talking about that at the grief group, the thought of Sherlock having left him behind in life while he went forward into death. Remembers thinking that it wasn’t all that different a feeling knowing that Sherlock had been alive when he chose to leave him behind. “You didn’t think I was… irrelevant or useless or something. A drag to have along.”

“Is that what you thought?” Sherlock asks. 

John looks over at him and sees a hardness forming in the corners of Sherlock’s expressive lips. “Yes,” he says honestly. “It… hurt. I thought I wasn’t worth telling or something, that so many other people knew and I didn’t.” He goes on, seeing Sherlock’s mouth open at this in frowning objection. “I know better now,” he says quickly. “I see why you had to do it. But – how did you know that you would survive the jump?” 

Sherlock’s mouth softens and twists a little. “I didn’t,” he says. “Mycroft knew that I was going to meet Moriarty. We had a few different plans based on how it could go. I didn’t mean for you to be there, though. To see it. I tried to send you away, but you were too clever. You came back too quickly. Or Moriarty spun it out too long. Either way.” 

John takes a deep, shuddering breath, realising then that he hasn’t breathed in too long. “But – that means that you still could have died that day,” he says, the words squeezing like a vice around his heart. 

“I suppose it does.” Sherlock glances at him through his lashes, the way he does when he feels particularly unsure of himself. “If I had, would you have forgiven me?”

John’s jaw clamps shut, hard. He swallows. “I would have tried,” he says, his voice coming out hollow. “It was… hard. Harder than anything I’ve ever been through before. But – knowing this… helps.” He clears his throat and attempts to blink the moisture out of his eyes. “What happened out there? What happened to you?” 

Sherlock looks down at the duvet again, watching his own fingers tracing the cotton thread. “It would take a long time to tell you all of it. There were nine different groups. That’s why it took so long. I had to gather enough evidence to set up arrests with Interpol and the MI6. Two of the groups captured me.” 

“That’s when – ” John stops, not wanting to come out and refer to the scars directly. 

Sherlock sighs a bit. He lets a few moments go by, then says, “I was in Moscow, nine months after I left London. I was mugged and got stabbed in the lower back. It wasn’t all that deep, but I lost a lot of blood. Some street kids found me and took me back to the place where they were sheltering, and one of the teens saw to the wound. Whatever he used wasn’t clean, and it infected after a few days. I didn’t realise I was feverish, in no condition to be continuing my mission, and I was captured. The wound healed, but I was… tortured. Not to be dramatic about it, but I suppose there’s no other way to put it.” 

John realises he is staring. (This would have been one of those moments that Mary would have chastised him over later. He shoves the thought of Mary as far into the recesses of his mind as it can go.) “What did they do?” he asks, barely breathing. 

“Not much that leaves marks,” Sherlock says, sounding very slightly bitter. “It was mostly starvation. Dehydration. Lack of sleep. Your basic routine, I suppose. Though there was an incident involving a flaming piece of iron. I don’t know whether you saw that. That was the worst – it hurt for literally months afterward. Anyway, I got away eventually, talked my way around some of the guards, and fled on foot into the nearby town of Podolsk, to the south, and from there I caught a bus into Belarus. When I was well enough to go on, I had lost the trail and had to go to Mycroft to beg for more information. I got the rest of them but was captured by the last group, too. They would be responsible for the whip scars. But Mycroft himself came that time, mostly because he needed me more in London than he did there, and also because I had caught the last of the terrorists by that point.” 

He still sounds bitter and John understands entirely. “God,” he says. “And you did all that all because you had no choice but to do it.” He pauses, waiting for Sherlock to contradict him, but he doesn’t. He raises his eyes to John’s, though. “And you did that to save my life,” John finishes, his voice and heart both heavy. 

Again, Sherlock doesn’t contradict him, doesn’t tell him that he’s got it wrong. “And Mrs Hudson’s and Lestrade’s,” he says, but it’s very quiet. 

John thinks of all the times that he sat up in the bed in the horrid flat he’d moved into when he left Baker Street, screaming into the night at Sherlock, when all the while he was alive – alive and suffering, possibly as vividly as he’d done, only in a different way. He thinks of how he rejected Sherlock when he first returned and suddenly feels sick with self-hatred. _I didn’t know,_ he reminds himself, but the words feel empty. One thing is very clear, though: Mary was wrong about Sherlock. Sherlock can love, and does. He loves at least three people in the world deeply enough to have endured all of this for them, even if he didn’t know what he was getting into when he stepped off that rooftop. Or perhaps he did. He’s the most intelligent person John’s ever met, after all. “I should have been with you,” he says, lifting his eyes to Sherlock’s and not trying to hide the layer of glassy tears forming over them this time. “You shouldn’t have had to do it all alone. I should have been with you.” 

The corners of Sherlock’s mouth prick and curl very slightly. “It would have made it a lot easier,” he admits. 

There’s an odd moment where John thinks that if he’d put himself any closer to Sherlock, things would be particularly dangerous just about now. Best change the subject. “Can I… see them?” he asks, not wanting to probe, but he _is_ Sherlock’s doctor, after all. 

Sherlock hesitates. “Everything is healed now.”

“Still. I’d like to see them,” John says. “For medical interest, if nothing else.” He does not say, _I want to see exactly what you went through on my behalf._

Sherlock doesn’t protest. Instead, he pushes himself up into a sitting position, his legs arranged under himself in the same, thoughtlessly graceful way that he does everything, and swiftly pulls the shirt off once again. He lies down on his front, his arms folded under his head and says, “Have at it, then.” 

John sits up, kneeling beside Sherlock. It’s difficult not to lean on him with the mattress slanting very slightly toward Sherlock, but it’s fairly firm and John keeps his hands off Sherlock’s skin for the most part. He points and touches very lightly, just to indicate, and asks questions. “It’s too bad they weren’t treated better when you got back,” John says, meaning the whip scars in particular. “There are products available to make the colour differentiation milder, but the ridges themselves would remain in any case.” 

“It’s fine,” Sherlock says, shrugging as best he can from his position. “I don’t care.”

John thinks of the gloriously smooth expanse of Sherlock’s back in the old days, when he used to regularly slouch around the flat in nothing but a sheet, and (on good days) underwear. “I care,” he says fiercely, not caring how it sounds. “It’s not fair – that you should carry these marks with you for the rest of your life.” 

Sherlock is quiet for a few moments. Then he says, “I would carry the marks with me anyway, John. I’m not likely to forget any part of those two years any time soon. And I don’t regret any of it. It was necessary.”

“I know, but – ” John isn’t satisfied with this. 

Sherlock cuts him off, uncharacteristically gentle. “Stop agonising about it. It’s long over now. Nothing to be done but to let it be.” 

John bows his head and accepts this. “All right,” he says. “But – to say thank you for this – for all of it – it would never be enough. For doing this for me. And the others. I can’t… tell you how much it means to me.”

Sherlock is silent again for a moment, evidently choosing his words carefully. “Then I’m glad I told you,” he says simply. Then, “I think I’ll go to sleep now. If you don’t mind.” 

John looks at him and feels a rush of wonder for everything that Sherlock is, everything that he has done for him, and on top that a swelling of affection over the fact that he’s even finally learned courtesy on top of it all. “Of course,” he says, his throat feeling tight again. He gets off the bed and goes to the door as Sherlock gets himself under the duvet, leaving the shirt behind. 

“John.” 

John stops and turns back. “Yeah?” 

“You’re worth saving,” Sherlock says, his voice slightly muffled by the blankets. “You’re my best friend.” 

John feels that he can barely speak. He is so moved by this that he doesn’t trust himself to do so. But he has to say something in response to this. “You’re mine, too.” 

“Good night, John.” Sherlock’s voice is drowsy, and John firmly pushes any ‘extraneous’ thoughts, as Mary would have called them, out of his head. 

“Good night,” he says, and pulls the door closed behind himself. 

*** 

He goes to his own room and lies awake for a long time, feeling troubled to the core of his being. He has always agreed with Mary’s opinion that love is generally not something that Sherlock does. He always believed that before Sherlock plummeted from the roof of Bart’s Hospital, believed that the customary sneer Sherlock employed when talking about sentiment was how he genuinely felt about the subject. He knew that Sherlock liked him well enough; he’d said himself that he’d never tolerated any other flatmate before John. John also remembers the occasional flashes of surprise on Sherlock’s face just before John would succeed in making him laugh, or when he agreed to something that Sherlock had clearly expected him to turn down. He knew that he was Sherlock’s first real friend, even if Sherlock never said as much. He also knew that there had only ever been one other foray into the realm of friendship, early in university, and that said friend had ditched Sherlock for other, more normal people and Sherlock had never bothered with friends ever since. He’d known that he was always an exception. 

He had not known that he was worth jumping from a rooftop for in Sherlock’s eyes. That he was worth undergoing the loneliness of life on the hunt or run, without anyone to help him or look after him. John thinks of Sherlock wandering around Moscow, hazy with fever from his infected wound, with only homeless street kids there to take him in, and feels a stab of self-recrimination for every moment he spent being angry with Sherlock while he was away. While I thought he was dead, John corrects himself, feeling miserable. He hadn’t known that Sherlock thought he was worth undergoing torture for. He _can_ love, and very obviously does. And he came back to – what? To a best friend who was freshly engaged and not around in the way he used to be, who wouldn’t speak to him, told him to fuck off, and said he didn’t care why Sherlock had done what he’d done. The last is the worst, John thinks. He wonders how recently the whipping had occurred before Sherlock’s return. He said it was the last group, before Mycroft had stepped in and freed him. How long had Sherlock waited before coming to find him? John remembers lunging at him in the first restaurant, slamming Sherlock onto his back on the floors, remembers the wince of pain on Sherlock’s face. _Oh, God._ He’d still been raw from it. Somehow he knows this without confirmation, just feels it instinctively. 

Sherlock loves him, then. Mary was wrong. John himself was wrong. He underestimated Sherlock, badly. How insulting. How cruel. John feels the recrimination over and over again, and wonders what he is meant to do with this information. He has known ever since he saw Sherlock on the floor of Magnussen’s suite that he loves him with all of his being, to the point that he stopped caring about whether it would upset Mary that he refused to leave Sherlock’s side in the hospital. Does that mean he rearranged his loyalties right then? Even before knowing that she was the one who put Sherlock there? And knowing _that_ , knowing that Mary was willing to put him through that, take Sherlock from him again, but permanently this time – can he ever forgive that? He knows that she loves him fiercely, or she would never have got that jealous or paranoid about Sherlock in the first place. In a way, he can understand her willingness to eliminate Sherlock, using the Magnussen threat as a cover for a far more personal motivation, because it honestly doesn’t make sense to John why she would have shot Sherlock rather than Magnussen. Her hatred of Sherlock is the only thing that makes sense. So: Mary always agreed with him that Sherlock couldn’t have ever loved him back. _I’m the solution to your problem_ , she’d told him, genuinely meaning it as consolation. But she was wrong about Sherlock. And perhaps some part of her suspected that Sherlock wasn’t merely flirting with John, that his feelings went far deeper than that. Sherlock himself said so at the wedding, hadn’t he? He came right out and said that he loves John the way Mary loves him. In retrospect, that’s not even subtle. Only John had just assumed that Sherlock didn’t quite know how it came across, how it sounded, and thought he was just being dramatic, like usual. 

But it’s true: Sherlock loves him. The proof is there on his very skin, marked in stripes that will never fully heal. 

The thought of it makes John’s own skin prickle, filling him with a hunger he doesn’t fully understand. He wants to put his fingers on the marks in Sherlock’s skin, lie down next to him and look into his eyes and tell him all manner of things that he cannot possibly say. But to make him know that it wasn’t for nothing, that John gets what he’s done, convey the enormity of it, of what it means to him. Make Sherlock feel that it was worth it, somehow. Give something back, some part of his soul that he would carve out and place in Sherlock’s hands to hold forever. John closes his eyes, swimming in impossible feeling that he cannot suppress or deny or forbid. 

*** 

In the morning, Sherlock makes no reference to their conversation the previous night, but he seems simultaneously more relaxed and also, oddly, as though he is humming with a quiet sort of energy, nearly vibrating with it. John doesn’t quite understand. It’s as though Sherlock is very pleased about something but trying to very carefully not let it show. He is awake before John, offering tea when John comes through the kitchen on his way to the shower. John declines, pointing at the loo in explanation, but when he comes out, Sherlock is cooking breakfast. 

John feels a bit surprised but decides not to comment on it as Sherlock gestures him to his chair with a spatula. He pours himself a cup of the offered tea and adds milk, pulling one of the papers closer and trying to read it, though he knows that he’s really watching Sherlock out the corner of his eye. It’s been a long time since anyone cooked him breakfast and it’s rather nice. Plus, things feel different than they did before he found out about everything. He can’t put his finger on what’s changed, exactly, but something definitely has. 

Sherlock sets a plate down in front of him with flourish, a tea towel draped over his dressing-gowned arm like a waiter. “Voilà,” he says. “I thought, since I’m healed now, I should start pulling my weight again.” 

John looks at the plate first. It’s all of his favourite things: scrambled eggs, thick-sliced bacon, ham, beans, fried tomatoes, and toast, the butter and jam both already on the table. He looks up at Sherlock. “Goodness,” he says, and, to keep things light he adds, smirking,“‘Again’?” 

Sherlock just smiles and goes back to the stove, arranging a second plate. He brings it over to the table and sits down across from John. “I guess it always used to be more Mrs Hudson’s domain. Breakfast, I mean. When you didn’t make it. From now on, I’ll make it, at least sometimes.” 

_From now on,_ John hears. He doesn’t quite know what to say to this, so he tries a smile that comes out almost the way he intended and says, “It looks good.” 

“Bon appétit,” Sherlock says, refilling his tea mug and stirring outrageous amounts of sugar into it. 

John watches him as they eat, always in careful glances, and wonders if he can actually even prevent it from happening if he tries. It’s just not black and white all of the time. Knowing what you want isn’t as easy as all that. They drift around the flat for the rest of the day, sometimes talking, sometimes not, but never about anything of particular importance. They order in for supper and eat on the sofa with a movie on that they’ve both seen before and therefore partially ignore. They eat and talk about one of the characters in the film a bit before lapsing into a silence so companionable and warm that John feels more aware of it than he is of the movie. When the credits finally roll, he knows that Sherlock’s upper arm is touching his and that he hasn’t moved away. He should have, but he never did. Sherlock picks up the remote and presses mute when the credits finish but neither of them moves. It’s as though they’re both waiting for it, John thinks, the thought coming unbidden to his mind. He turns his head and looks at Sherlock and Sherlock is already looking at him. At his lips, rather. He turns in toward John, his face coming close, and John’s heart begins to thunder in his chest. He’s mirroring Sherlock, though not precisely leaning in. There are only two inches of space between their faces. Sherlock’s lips are slightly parted, his nose almost nudging into John’s but stopping just shy of touching it. They are going to kiss. They’re too close for this to be anything else, John thinks. He should stop it. He _should_. It’s too late, though; Sherlock has given him the window to duck away, make some sort of embarrassed explanation, but he hasn’t taken it. He feels dizzy, Sherlock’s proximity pulling him in like a magnet, his breath on John’s lips. Sherlock turns his face to the right, his mouth even closer to John’s and he stops, his lips hovering in place for a moment, then his eyes drift closed and he puts his lips against John’s in what is instantly the gentlest, most tentative, most intimate-feeling kiss of John’s life. Every thought of _should_ vs. _shouldn’t_ disappears, forgotten, emotion surging through him like an electric charge, searing along the length of his spine and into his brain and guts and skin all at once. His lips tighten instinctively against Sherlock’s and Sherlock puts a hand on his jaw and partly around the back of his neck, sealing their mouths together. John feels more than he’s ever felt kissing any other person in his life, a dizzy vortex of unspoken, never acted-upon feelings rising up and swirling around him like a tornado. He leans into Sherlock, pressing their lips together still more, and then the kiss deepens on its own, their mouths both opening at the same time, lipping at each other’s, hot breath mingling, and John knows in that instant that he has never loved anyone else as much as he’s always loved Sherlock and that it’s a damned good thing he never knew before now that Sherlock was capable of this. The arm that was on the back of the sofa has come around John’s back, long fingers digging into his skin through his jumper, and the thumb of Sherlock’s left hand is pressing into his cheekbone. Their tongues are stroking together in the deepest, most intimate way possible, and John feels as though he could howl for the sheer amount of emotion that’s pouring through his being. His arms get themselves around Sherlock without his conscious volition and for one long, fiercely beautiful moment, he refuses to let himself think, throwing himself into the kiss. Sherlock makes a sound into his mouth of such passion that John’s heart pounds even harder. It’s beautiful, completely glorious, but – 

Mary’s face appears in his head like a ghost, her eyes seeing everything exactly as it is, eyebrows arched and unimpressed. She knows she was right about him; the knowledge is there in her eyes, accusing and terrible. John was wrong and she was right: he had wanted this all along. He _is_ attracted to Sherlock, and not just because of his charisma or anything of the things he used to try to tell himself. He desires Sherlock, wants him in every sexual way there is, and Mary knows it. Her face in his head sees it all, both mockingly triumphant and disappointed/disgusted at the same time. Warning bells jangle in his head. Furthermore, it’s _Mary_ , his wife. Who is carrying his child. Guilt and recrimination flood through John’s being like a bucket of ice water and he breaks the kiss off abruptly. “I’m sorry,” he gasps out. “I – Sherlock, I can’t – I’m sorry – ”

Sherlock’s eyes open, his pupils huge in their pale irises. He looked taken aback. “But – why?” he asks, sounding for once in his life as confused as John at a crime scene. “Why not?” His arms are still around John, as though John will start making sense and that they can start kissing again once he has. 

John takes a deep breath and attempts to make sense of his whirling thoughts, the panic bleating in his brain. “I – I don’t – I’m not – ” he stammers out, lost for the right words. His entire body feels on fire with what still ranks as the best kiss he’s ever had, but he has to govern himself from the mind, not the heart. (Or lower.) “I’m sorry,” he says again, unhappily, pulling his knees together, and Sherlock’s hands go limp and drop away from him. He feels the loss keenly, his skin cold where Sherlock’s hands were just a moment before. “It’s just – ”

Sherlock doesn’t look any more enlightened than he did a moment ago. “It’s just what?” he asks, his voice guarded. He looks as though he’s been slapped. 

“I just… I don’t know what I want,” John manages to say, unable to meet Sherlock’s eyes and looking straight ahead instead. “I’m sorry.” 

Sherlock rakes all ten fingers through his hair. “It seemed clear enough a moment ago,” he says, still confused, but there are the beginnings of anger there, too. 

“That’s just the thing, though,” John says, forcing it out. “It wasn’t, even then.” 

Sherlock exhales deeply. “But I thought – ”

“What?” It’s sharper than John intended. “What did you think?” He risks a look at Sherlock. 

Sherlock gestures vaguely at the sitting room. “I mean, you’re here, and you have been since… and after all that time in the hospital, that you stayed with me, I just thought…” He trails off. 

John feels heavy and sick. “You thought I was going to stay for good.” Sherlock’s silence is answer enough. He makes himself speak slowly, choosing his words with care. “I still don’t… know,” he says, struggling to be as honest as he possibly can. “I’m… married, if you recall.”

“To – ” Sherlock stops himself, but the single word is full of anger, grief, and bitterness so poignant that John catches a fleeting glimpse of all that Sherlock has _not_ said about the woman who shot and tried to kill him. Instead, he clamps the words back and looks down at his knees. “I didn’t realise you were still contemplating going back to her,” he says, extremely stiffly. 

“I don’t know that I _am_ ,” John says, feeling wretched and hating himself at the moment. “I just know that it’s not clear yet. I haven’t made a final decision. And even if I didn’t… I don’t know...” 

When he speaks again, Sherlock sounds strained. “You don’t know… what, precisely? If you would… permit this to happen between us?” 

John nods, the self-loathing deepening still further. “You know I’m not gay,” he says very quietly, his voice as tense as Sherlock’s. His arms are crossed as though in self-defence. “I’ve never – that was my first time kissing another man, ever. I just – it’s not something I – I don’t know!” he bursts out, putting his hands on his face and rubbing at his eyes. “I just – nothing’s clear right now. I’m sorry.” 

Sherlock pulls all of his limbs in close to himself and when he breaks the silence that follows, his voice is tight. “I thought that it was already happening. I thought that you were all right with that. And I thought that – yesterday – changed things. Secured them somewhat. Evidently I was mistaken. I… apologise.” 

The last word sounds as dry and dead as a fallen leaf, brown and withering into dust, and John wants to take it all back, pull Sherlock into his arms and tell him that he didn’t mean any of it, that he’s an idiot and that of course he’s staying forever. But he can’t. He doesn’t know that. (Yet? He doesn’t know whether or not there is a _yet_ implied.) “I’m the one who should apologise,” he says, his own cracking into a whisper. “I’m sorry, Sherlock. I – ” He stops, and Sherlock doesn’t say anything. 

The silence lengthens again. Finally Sherlock gets up, and without a word, walks down the corridor into his bedroom and closes the door behind him. 

John feels the door closing like the lid of a well being slid shut somewhere far above his head. He wants to pick up his tea mug and hurl it into the fireplace, smashing it to pieces. Instead he takes their dishes into the kitchen and tries not to think about what just happened, but he can’t help it. Has he just ruined their friendship forever? That could very well be. He has hurt Sherlock – hurt him badly, and he feels like absolute shit. That’s one thing he’s an absolute master of: hurting people. Hot fluid keeps seeping into his eyes like toxic groundwater and finally he abandons the clean-up and goes upstairs, hating himself and hating his life, hating the fact that he can practically feel Sherlock’s hurt radiating upwards in spikes from the bedroom below. Hating Mary, and hating himself for even thinking of going back to her, and hating that she was right about him, about what he wanted. Hating that he still can’t make up his mind about what he is, as a very basic thing. It’s all well and good to say that he isn’t gay, but when the best, most emotional kiss of his life just came from someone who certainly isn’t a woman, that’s a very shaky argument. And he hates that he will probably never get a second chance to kiss Sherlock again, not after what he just did with the first one. 

_But I just don’t know,_ he wants to say, but there is no one there to listen. Sherlock has every right to be angry with him. He wasn’t precisely flirting, but he wasn’t precisely not flirting, either. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that has led Sherlock on, led him to think that the kiss would be okay, or even very much welcome. John hadn’t exactly yanked his fingers away every time they touched Sherlock’s for whatever small reason. He hadn’t moved away when Sherlock put himself within his personal space. And even with as much clinical detachment as he was able to summon while tending the hole in Sherlock’s chest, all of that had been undeniably intimate in its own way, too. Yes: Sherlock has every call to be furious with him. John vows to apologise again in the morning, as many times as is needed. He should have been more careful. Mary was right about him. He’d thought he could handle being on his own with Sherlock without being tempted, but circumstances just – went that way, somehow. He couldn’t control it. 

“I’m not gay,” he says aloud to the ceiling. But the ceiling makes no response. 

The other, far worse possibility is that Sherlock will be so horribly hurt that he will find it difficult to even be in the same room as John, in which case an apology might only rub in the sting of John’s rejection. John tosses and turns, hating this thought. To think that after everything Sherlock has done for him, that his response was to wound him still further, is terrible. He is the worst person alive. He should have been more careful. 

He closes his eyes, but sleep refuses to take pity on him and let him escape until dawn is already lightening the skies to the east. 

*** 

He sleeps late in the morning and doesn’t want to go downstairs when he wakes. Doesn’t want to face Sherlock, see the hurt in his eyes. He can hardly just camp out in his bedroom forever, though. He goes cautiously downstairs after awhile. Sherlock isn’t up yet, or at any rate, he isn’t out of his bedroom. The doors to both the corridor and the loo are closed. John takes a long shower. When he steps out, towelling himself dry, he hears only silence from the other side of the door, and when he leaves the bathroom, he sees that the bedroom door is now open. The room itself is empty, the bed made as smoothly as though it was never slept in. On a normal day, he would call Sherlock’s name, see what he was up to, but it’s not a normal day. John feels instinctively that Sherlock is not in the flat. He glances into the kitchen and the sitting room on his way upstairs to dress and sees that he is correct: Sherlock has left. 

He feels both disappointed and apprehensive. The disappointment strikes him as odd, but upon reflection John realises that even now, even with things as they are, he always looks forward to the first contact of the day, as though every night was too long to be without Sherlock. _Stop it_ , he tells himself with slight horror. These sorts of thoughts are ridiculous and will only make things worse. It’s not as though he wasn’t aware of the fact that he loves Sherlock: it’s only that he’s also well aware that having feelings does not mean needing to act on them. He just doesn’t know about any of this. He doesn’t know whether he and Mary are well and truly finished, or if he just needs space away from her for the time being. He also doesn’t know whether, if Mary wasn’t in the picture at all, Sherlock could actually be what John would need for him to be if they were ever going to contemplate that. It’s not that John has changed his mind about considering a homosexual relationship for the first time in his life, but – it’s Sherlock and it’s exceptional. That kiss was exceptional. He knows what he felt during it, knows that he’s never felt anything like it before. If there was ever going to be an exception, it would be Sherlock and no one else. But relationships, compromise, all of that – it’s never exactly been Sherlock’s forte. 

John comes to himself and realises he’s been standing in the kitchen in his dressing gown for the past ten minutes doing nothing whatsoever. The entire house feels as though it’s been empty for months. He wishes he knew where Sherlock went. It’s far too soon to text him and ask. And it would be too difficult to get a reading on his current mood in a text, too. He sighs and goes to the coffee maker, filling it and switching it on before going upstairs to dress. He makes enough for Sherlock just in case Sherlock comes home sometime soon. 

He doesn’t. By one o’clock in the afternoon, John throws the rest of it away and switches off the machine, rinsing the carafe and wishing again that Sherlock would come home. He makes lunch and eats it by himself. This is horrible, he thinks, unable to concentrate on reading any of the papers. They were still folded neatly when he came downstairs; clearly Sherlock hasn’t read them yet, either. 

John has migrated to the desk when Sherlock comes back at last, close to five. He looks up, butterflies stirring nervously in his gut. “Hello,” he says, when Sherlock reaches the top of the stairs. He doesn’t know whether to expect anger, accusation, red eyes, or sullen silence, but he is dreading all of the possibilities. 

Sherlock doesn’t conform to any of his expectations, though, which should hardly be surprising, but – “Hello,” he says, his voice brisk and rather indifferent, actually. He pulls off his coat and hangs it up on the back of the door without looking at John and goes into the kitchen, plugging in the kettle. “Have you eaten dinner?” 

He isn’t looking at John, standing with his hands on his hips, watching the kettle for a moment before going to get the teapot from the table and taking it to the sink to give it a rinse. His entire demeanour is casual, detached, rather the way he used to be in the early days of their acquaintance. John feels rather taken aback. It seems impossible to think that this is the same man who was kissing him with so much passion John was half-afraid he’d unravel then and there, in his arms, less than twenty-four hours ago. It takes him a moment to find words. “No, not yet,” he says, barely hearing what he’s saying. Perhaps Sherlock is still angry but just trying to pretend he isn’t. He wants to ask where he’s been. 

As though hearing his thoughts, Sherlock tells him. “There was an interesting corpse at Molly’s lab today. The police thought it was a poisoning but the tox screen came up clean. He killed himself, whether accidentally or deliberately, through an entirely non-toxic type of poisoning.” 

He delivers this with as much interest as he would tell anyone, but it seems completely impersonal somehow. John feels a coldness in the pit of his stomach. “Water intoxication?” he says, not caring about the cause of death in the slightest. 

Normally Sherlock is pleased and a bit proud of him when he guesses things correctly, but he merely nods. “Yes.” 

John thinks of him getting the call to come in and take a look at the corpse. He’s not a mortician, but bodies are _his_ area, after all. Normally Sherlock would have asked him to come, if not Lestrade. “Why didn’t you tell me about it?” he asks slowly, uncertain as to whether or not asking the question is wise but wanting to know nonetheless. 

Sherlock shrugs, scooping loose tea into the teapot. “You were occupied.” 

John feels rebuffed, though possibly he’s overreacting. He looks at Sherlock’s feet. It’s November and he should be wearing socks. He is. “You got your socks on,” he says. 

Sherlock gives another slight twitch of the shoulders, as though his observation is slightly irritating. “Obviously.” He pulls out one of the kitchen chairs and sits down there, rather than coming into the sitting room where John is. 

Perhaps he’s just waiting for the kettle to boil. “Good job,” John says, meaning the socks, and his voice sounds hollow. Now that Sherlock’s wound has healed, perhaps he won’t need John to do anything for him any more. John had thought that socks might be one thing that would still put some strain on it, though. Evidently not. He hesitates, wanting to apologise again about the previous night but not knowing where to start. Sherlock’s veneer seems impenetrably solid at the moment, not conducive to having a discussion about something as unimaginably intimate as their kiss yesterday was. For a wild moment, John almost wonders if he invented the entire thing in his imagination. He didn’t, though. With Sherlock he never doubts his own sense of reality. Of the two of them, he’s the one who’s got a grip on things like a sense of time, social norms, what happened, everything that life with Mary made him regularly doubt. “Sherlock…” he begins. 

Sherlock doesn’t say anything, just sits there drumming his fingers on the kitchen table as though he didn’t even hear him. 

It’s not particularly encouraging, but John decides to press on. “Look,” he says, feeling wretched all over again. “I just wanted to say again that I’m sorry for y – ”

“It’s not necessary to discuss it,” Sherlock says, the brusqueness fading from his voice. Now he just sounds wooden. 

“But I – ”

“There is nothing to discuss,” Sherlock says, very firmly, and still not looking at him. “I made an error of judgement. It won’t happen again. There is no reason to discuss it and I would prefer not to.” The kettle boils and he gets swiftly to his feet and goes to it, pours hot water into the teapot, then disappears down the corridor. 

John sits there and waits, thinking that perhaps Sherlock just went to the loo or something, that he’ll come back for the tea, but he doesn’t. A glance down the corridor shows that Sherlock has gone into his bedroom and closed the door behind him, leaving the tea for John and John alone. 

*** 

Strangely, life seems to continue. Sherlock makes absolutely no reference to the kiss or the night when John discovered his scars. There is some semblance of their old camaraderie, but it feels lessened to John. All of the closeness that had grown between them from the weeks in the hospital and then being back at Baker Street together has evaporated. Sherlock is perfectly friendly – too much so. It occasionally comes across feeling slightly insincere. John tells him one day that he should wait a little longer to start taking cases again and Sherlock merely shrugs and says, “As you like,” and turns the page of the newspaper without even looking up. He is the same on the surface, yet completely different at the same time. The softer side that John had been seeing regularly when they first came back to the flat is gone. And sometimes he treats John as though he’s little more than a stranger, perfectly cordial, blandly polite, and nothing more. 

It hurts, far more than John would care to admit. He feels as though he’s the one who was rejected, shut out of Sherlock’s inner sanctum so precisely that it’s almost as though he can’t even see the cracks where the doors leading to it are. Sherlock carries on the way he used to, even laughing sometimes, and John searches for some sign that it’s not real, that it’s all just a brave face Sherlock is putting on, but he genuinely can’t tell. 

After a week of this, he phones Molly surreptitiously one day, when Sherlock’s stepped out to go to the shops. John had offered to go with him, do the heavy carrying, but Sherlock brushed him off, saying that he would take a taxi if the bags were too heavy. He’d done it without any sharpness or stiffness to his tone, yet nonetheless shut John out politely and completely. John dials Molly’s extension at the hospital and waits for her to pick it up. 

It takes eight rings and she is breathless when she answers. “Laboratory! Molly Hooper speaking!”

“Molly,” John says. “It’s John Watson. Have you got a minute?” 

“Oh, John!” she says, still sounding flustered. “Yes – let me just take off my gloves, sorry! Won’t be a moment!” He hears her set the receiver down, then the sound of rubber gloves snapping off, water running. She’s back thirty seconds later. “So sorry,” she says again. “What can I do for you?” 

“Er, I was just wondering if I could ask about something,” John says, trying not to sound awkward. She’s waiting, so he goes on. “Last week, Sherlock came in to have a look at a corpse where the cause of death was water intoxication?” 

“Yes,” Molly says. “That’s right.” She’s still waiting for the real question. 

John pinches the bridge of his nose. “Listen, I know this is going to sound odd, but – how did he seem to you? Sherlock, not the corpse. Like – was he all right, would you say?” 

“What do you mean?” Molly sounds confused. 

John presses on doggedly. “I mean, did he seem upset at all, or like anything was bothering him? Did he behave unusually at all?” 

“No,” Molly says, sounding confused. “No more unusually than – well, usual!” She gives a bit of a laugh. 

John frowns at the carpet. “You’re sure? There wasn’t anything… he didn’t seem unhappy or upset at all, to you?” 

“No,” Molly says again. She sounds a little nonplussed. “Not that I noticed at all. He just seemed like – Sherlock. He was talking quickly, figured out the real cause of death within a few minutes, of course, stupid me for missing it. I wondered why he hadn’t brought you but he just said you were busy.” 

John pounces on this. “And that – he didn’t seem to – mind, about that?” 

Molly pauses. “No, not that I could tell,” she tells him again. “Is… something going on? Is everything all right?” 

“Yes,” John says quickly. He invents something hastily. “We just had a very small row about something. It’s all fine now. I just wondered if he was upset at the time. That’s all.”

“Well, don’t worry,” Molly reassures him. “He seemed absolutely normal to me. I mean, as normal as he gets. You know.” She gives her slightly awkward giggle again. “I’m sure it’s all fine. He didn’t seem affected at all. It was probably nothing to him, whatever it was. You know he doesn’t get upset by the same things we do.” 

John closes his eyes, letting her words sink into him. It’s not at all reassuring. “I see,” he says, trying and failing to sound as though he feels relieved by what she’s said. “Thanks a lot. That’s… great.” 

“No problem,” Molly says, a smile in her voice, and she disconnects. 

John stays where he is for a very long time, still holding his phone. So even though Sherlock seemingly left the flat and evaded him all day, he didn’t seem even slightly bothered to Molly, who is always more attuned to his moods than most people would be. She would know if he had been upset. How does that work, then? John is startled to discover that he feels angry – angry that Sherlock _wasn’t_ upset by the fact of his rejection the night before. Did it actually not mean anything to him, then? He hadn’t seemed particularly happy during the awful conversation that followed the kiss. Was he actually able to just tell himself that whatever it was he’d thought was happening between the two of them had been a miscalculation on his part and was not actually going to transpire, and just accepted it? Stopped thinking about it, stopped having any related feelings regarding it? 

Suddenly John remembers the night that he’d come in his sleep, dreaming of Sherlock’s hands on his body, and what Mary had said: _I’m the solution to your problem. You know Sherlock. He would never think of you that way. He doesn’t do that sort of thing at all. You know that. He’s not like other people. He doesn’t know what it means to love someone._ God fucking damn it. She was right. She was completely right about Sherlock, just as she was right about him. She read them both perfectly, knew that it would never work between them, that Sherlock _wouldn’t_ ever be either capable of or willing to love someone the way other people do. John wavers for a moment, thinking of the scars on Sherlock’s back and thinking that they were a mark of proof of Sherlock’s very ability to love. It’s not the same, though. That kind of act was a sacrifice on his part, but doing something like a regular, day-to-day relationship? The sort of tiny, domestic sacrifices, like washing the dishes or making your partner feel loved in small ways – that, he would never do. Mary was right. She _was_ the solution, in many ways. And he’s gone and left her – left her without a word. He hasn’t spoken to her since his terse _You stay away from him_ , here in the sitting room at Baker Street before Sherlock was rushed back to the hospital for defibrillation. She is pregnant, carrying his child. His less-than-completely-wanted child, but it doesn’t matter. She is his wife and he vowed to love and cherish her forever. 

_She shot Sherlock_ , a voice in his head reminds him. _Yes, because she knew that he was and always would be a threat to our marriage. As long as Sherlock was alive, I would be tempted to try it, tempted to ruin my own life by trying to have a relationship with him instead of with someone who is actually capable of loving me back._ Oh, God. John goes to one of the desk chairs and sits down heavily, his face dropping into his hands. What has he done? And the fact that he went and _kissed_ Sherlock? Would she ever forgive that? He’d thought, during that kiss, that he hadn’t known that Sherlock could be like that, be that passionate, but he must have interpreted that wrong. Mary would definitely say that he had. Because Sherlock is clearly very capable of shutting it off completely, just switching off and deciding not to feel anything. He said he’d made an error, then continued their friendship with renewed boundaries in place, so that a similar mistake wouldn’t happen again, and John had gone and let himself feel all hurt by that, when Sherlock was only doing exactly what it should have seemed like they both wanted. It’s the coldness, the detachment that bothers John. The fact that he was and is capable of simply saying to himself, _Oh, all right then. That’s not an option. No matter: carry on._ He’d thought that the kiss actually meant something to Sherlock – something very real and rather profound. He’d thought that he’d hurt Sherlock, badly. 

But he was wrong. And if he hadn’t pushed Mary away, he never would have made that mistake. She would have been there to tell him that he’d read Sherlock wrong, read in what he wanted to see, but that it wasn’t really there. She’d have done it kindly, reminded him that he got things like that wrong all the time, and been nice enough to handle his impatience and annoyance about being told that again. All the while knowing about his feelings for Sherlock – he won’t call it a crush as she does; it’s far worse than a crush and he refuses to diminish it with a word like that – and tolerating that, tolerating the fact that he has feelings for someone else. He sees Mary’s graciousness now, and remembers all the times that she reminded him that she was only trying to help, how grumpy he was about it. And she was _right_ , because he is a complete and utter idiot when it comes to Sherlock. He should have known. He _did_ know – he always has! He’s always had an issue with Sherlock’s ability to detach that way. Why should it have been any different with the two of them? 

It was my own ego, John thinks bitterly. Wanting to believe that he was in love with me. He took those beatings for Mrs Hudson and Greg just as much as he did for me. I’m not special. I just wanted to be, because he’s far too special to me. His head aches. He stares across the desk without seeing anything, evening darkening the sitting room. He’s been such a fool. He should have listened to Mary all along. He wonders if she would forgive him for having left her if he told her that, that she was right. 

A long while later, he takes out his phone and carefully types _I miss you_. As he presses send, the door downstairs opens. Sherlock is back with the shopping. He should go down and help him with the bags, John thinks, feeling numb. He gets up. His legs feel as though he hasn’t used them in a year. He manages to keep his tone as neutral and civil as Sherlock’s is, taking some of the bags from him and carrying them up to the kitchen. His phone buzzes in his pocket, but he waits until the groceries are put away before allowing himself to read it. 

It’s from Mary. _Hello, stranger_. 

*** 

When they leave on Christmas Day, John knows that Sherlock knows that he is not planning to come back. His text exchanges with Mary have been very short. After her initial greeting, she always took a very long time to respond, her tone unfailingly quite cool. But she was talking to him, at least. He hopes that his planned reconciliation goes well; the feigned, surface friendliness in the flat is driving him around the bend. He’s tired of loving someone who doesn’t love him back, who has made a conscious choice not to do so. He can feel Sherlock’s awareness of the fact of his leaving like a constraint between them, though neither of them has mentioned it. He asked if it would be all right if Mary came for dinner at the Holmes’ and Sherlock said politely, “Of course. She’s your wife.” There was no trace of the burst of bitterness and anger John thought he heard the night of the kiss, when he said that he hadn’t decided whether or not to go back to Mary. He must have imagined that. Mary would have told him that he had. 

They tactfully leave him alone with Mary, and it goes off better than he’d thought it might. By the time she collapses in his arms, they’re a couple again, and he’s relieved. Then Sherlock is handing him his coat and explaining about Magnussen and the helicopter and John wonders what the hell is going on. What does happen goes horrifyingly wrong, and as John is getting flicked in the face by the most repellent man he’s ever encountered, he chances to catch a glimpse of Sherlock’s face. He sees something there that he didn’t expect after weeks of Sherlock’s polite detachment: Sherlock is beyond upset, beyond furious. He is perilously close to the brink of losing control, and a few minutes later, he does, his hand slipping into John’s pocket for his gun and shooting Magnussen in the head. John gasps in horror as the wind howls around them, Mycroft’s magnified voice echoing over the terrace as everything suddenly becomes a nightmare. He watches Sherlock fall to his knees, his hands raised in surrender as his coat flaps around him like wings and thinks, feeling stunned, _He just shot a man for me. The way I did for him._ He realises in that instant with horrifying certainty that he was wrong. Or rather that he _wasn’t_ wrong initially – it was because Mary had drilled it into his head to believe that Sherlock could never love someone the way that other people do, Mary who made him so defensive about his sexuality that saying he isn’t gay has become such a knee-jerk reaction every time anyone even breathes a suggestion that he might not be entirely straight. 

He knows with equally horrible certainty that it is too late. His realisation has come too late. Sherlock has just shot someone in unmistakeable, absolute proof of the lengths he would go to for John’s sake. Magnussen said that he was Sherlock’s pressure point: the only way to get at Sherlock, upset him. That was the reason they’d put him into the fire that Sherlock had rushed headlong into and dragged him out, heedless of his own safety – while Mary stood by and did nothing. He was so wrong about Sherlock, and this time it’s too late. Too late for them to ever get a second chance at being together, and too late for Sherlock. They will kill him for this, one way or another. Send him away or lock him up or arrange for some sort of ‘accident’. 

They say that hindsight is twenty-twenty, John thinks, feeling dazed and half-blinded by the searchlights on the choppers and the glaring shock of seeing exactly how stupid he’s been. Of course the detachment was a façade. Sherlock has always been able to act well. And now Sherlock is going to pay the price of John’s error, of his lack of trust in Sherlock’s ability to love and the fact of his love, and he is going to pay it with his very life. 

*** 

Three surreal-feeling days later, they’re standing on a runway, Mary just a few metres away in her bright red coat, her hair blowing into her face in the wind. He detached himself from her hand to walk a few paces away to try to somehow face the enormity of the fact that Sherlock is leaving and never coming back. He doesn’t know how to even make it feel real. It doesn’t yet, at least not on the surface, but the knowledge is there somewhere deeper in his gut. He can’t say anything that matters – neither of them can. Not here. Not now. Not in front of Mary and Mycroft. He wants to apologise, wants Sherlock to know that he _did_ finally see the truth, but what does it even matter now? The fact is that he’s made the worst mistake of his life and there isn’t one damned thing that could ever fix it. His rejection has killed Sherlock in a sense, though he knows it was Sherlock’s choice. All he can do now is at least try to live the life that Sherlock arranged for him to have, since he thought it was what John wanted. He’s made his bed: now he must lie in it. 

He hasn’t made love to Mary since their reconciliation, feigning slight illness. If she suspects his lie for what it is, she hasn’t said. The flat is so much more beige than he remembered, but then, everything always did feel that way without Sherlock. 

Sherlock has been in the MI6’s private holding cells since Christmas night and it shows in how contracted his pupils are in the bright overcast light. Six months, he’s said. John thinks of this and wonders if there is any way for Sherlock to get himself out of it. He’s so clever. Maybe he’ll find a way. And what if he does? John will still be married to Mary. Trying gamely to be a father to their child. Nothing would change – he’s lost that opportunity. The worst is knowing that Sherlock is going off to certain death, and facing it alone all over again, for him. Nothing could be worse than that. 

“John,” Sherlock says, sounding just a trifle unsure of himself, “there’s… something I should say. I’ve meant to say it always and then never have. Since it’s unlikely we’ll ever meet again, I might as well say it now.”

 _Oh God_ , John thinks instantly, squinting into Sherlock’s open, pained eyes. _Don’t say it. Not now. Please, God, no._ If Sherlock says it, he will go to pieces. He steels himself. 

Sherlock looks at him, taking in his expression, the rigidness of his shoulders, then inhales and says something which is obviously completely different from what he originally had planned. “Sherlock is a girl’s name,” he says, and John’s laugh comes more from sheer relief than from actually finding it funny. Instead, what he remembers later is the small smile on Sherlock’s face, pleased that he’d made him laugh, and suddenly it feels the way things felt when they were first back at the flat, when Sherlock was gentler, more open, more vulnerable. For a moment they look into each other’s eyes, their smiles fading, and John wonders if Sherlock can read it there, see that John does love him after all. That he knows he was wrong and that he would go back to that night on the sofa and change the past if he possibly could. But he can’t: it’s too late. Sherlock pulls off his glove and offers his hand to John in farewell. John takes it and holds it, feeling the warmth of Sherlock’s fingers against and around his own, and knows that they are both thinking of the kiss. “To the very best of times,” Sherlock says. 

John cannot respond; his throat has closed. He manages a nod, and then Sherlock lets go of his hand and turns and walks away. John watches him go, feeling that his entire heart and soul are going with him. He hasn’t asked if he could go, too, because he already knows the answer. And that because of his choices, his mistakes, he’s got to stay here and live out his life with Mary. He knows what Sherlock is going back into, what he’s facing. (How can he possibly stand it, though? Will anyone even bother letting him know what becomes of Sherlock out there?) When the plane door closes, only then does he make his way blindly to Mary, gripping her hand hard enough to hurt, but it’s the only way to keep the pain in his throat at bay. The plane turns on the tarmac, taxies, and rises into the air. Sherlock is gone. _I might as well be dead now, too,_ John thinks in private despair. What is life without Sherlock? He’s done this before, been forced to acknowledge the fact that Sherlock is gone from his life forever. It’s no less agonising this time, but he must not let it show on his face. 

There is a sudden commotion in Mycroft’s car, and then an agent is running to him. “Sir! The car! It’s the telly – ”

Mycroft turns, eyebrows arched, and then his entire face changes. For the first time ever, John sees Mycroft turn and run toward the car, his long, spindly legs flying. Then Mycroft’s voice is barking something, orders, and for some reason John glances instinctively up at the tiny dot of the plane in the clear skies. It suddenly veers to the left and begins to circle back. John lets go of Mary’s hand and runs to where Mycroft is, Mary following as quickly as she can, hampered by her belly.

“What is it?” John demands, not caring that Mary is there. “What’s going on?” 

Mycroft favours him with a smile that’s ninety percent grimace. “We have a problem,” he says, in a tone that suggests it’s a significant understatement. He gestures toward the interior of the car, and John recognises the voice emitting from the small television with horror on a knee-jerk response level. 

“Moriarty!” he says, feeling stunned. 

“What?” Mary demands. “But he’s dead. I mean, you told me he was dead, Moriarty!”

“Absolutely,” John says. “He blew his own brains out.” He looks at Mycroft, wondering if this is some gimmick to get Sherlock out of the mission. Mycroft’s face betrays nothing. He turns to Mary, barely hearing her question. “Well, if it is, he’d better wrap up warm,” he says, joy flooding his gut and blood vessels and every pore of his skin. “There’s an East wind coming.” He doesn’t bother explaining the reference. It doesn’t matter. All that bloody matters is that Sherlock is coming back, that he isn’t going to die. It almost doesn’t even matter that they can’t be together. He can go on being married to Mary as long as Sherlock is there in the world, alive and nearby and whole. Nothing else matters but that. 

*


	3. Chapter 3

**Part III**

 

Moriarty’s return _was_ a ruse, as it turns out. Mycroft at least has the grace to tell him before the day is out. Mary is not pleased. John knew that her apparent anger at the news about Moriarty really had to do with the fact that it meant that Sherlock would be coming back. She wanted him gone, was all smiles about his departure. He’d seen the way both Sherlock and Mary’s friendly faces had fallen the instant they turned their backs on each other. It makes sense. For his own part, he feels so overwhelmed with different feelings that he isn’t even sure where to start. There’s a fierce joy at knowing that Sherlock has been spared, that he doesn’t actually have to face for the fourth time in his life the thought of Sherlock dying. He hadn’t even begun to process it; the whole goodbye on the tarmac felt utterly surreal. Now he won’t have to process it, wait for the truth of it to seep into his skin and dissolve him from within, because Sherlock is still here. In London. Near him. 

Not that it will do him, personally, much good: it also hasn’t yet fully registered that he is looking at facing the rest of his days with Mary Morstan, or whoever she really is. John has a sinking feeling that this reality is going to feel very heavy when the full weight of it really sets in. He’s forty-one. He could live another forty-one years, or more. With Mary. The woman who shot Sherlock, who lied and lied and lied. She’s nearly a stranger, if he really thinks about it. He knows her mannerisms but every single thing she has ever said to him was a lie. She never lost anyone. She wasn’t grieving an abusive ex-boyfriend. No one ever yelled at her and made her so extremely sensitive about that. Said imaginary ex-boyfriend never dallied on the side with anyone, male or female. Her entire paranoia about Sherlock was never justified by some traumatic past relationship: it’s merely that she has known since he admitted it that one night that he loved Sherlock and still loves him, would always love him, and that nothing could ever change that. She had probably already known from the way John spoke about him at their grief group. 

It doesn’t matter now. He’s made his terrible mistake and he’s just got to live with the consequences now. They all will. Mary has accepted him back and he’s got a child to raise with her. And Sherlock – this is the worst of it, as John has to remind himself when he starts to feel that his own future is looking extremely bleak – Sherlock will just have to accept it and adjust, too. They can always be friends, at least. Somehow he thinks that Sherlock would give him that, would forgive him to that extent. Asking him for a second chance at love would be another story, maybe. It doesn’t matter now, anyway. It’s all said and done. And friendship is a whole lot more than nothing. Sherlock is still the best friend John’s ever had, and he knows that the reverse is entirely true. It’s not starvation. They’ll still have each other, in a way. 

It feels a little empty. _But it was my mistake,_ John tells himself dully, finally unpacking the few things he brought along in an overnight bag. He’s just been living out of the bag since he got back, but now it’s time to accept the idea that he’s got to unpack. Stay here. The drawers on his side of the dresser are filled with Mary’s things, as though he never lived there. He pushes them to one side and puts all of the things he brought with him there. They fit easily into half a drawer. He’ll have to go back to Baker Street at some point and get the rest of it. He looks at his meagre possessions and then closes the drawer. 

“We need to talk.”

John looks up. Mary is standing there, in the doorway. Her face is very sober. John feels apprehensive. “Oh?” he tries. “What’s up?” 

“Don’t give me that.” Mary comes in and closes the bedroom door behind her and leans against it, her arms crossed above her belly. “We haven’t talked properly since you came home and it’s time. Especially now.” 

John tries not to let any reaction show on his face. “Why especially now?”

“You know damned well why.” There is no levity in Mary’s tone whatsoever. “With Sherlock out of the way, our marriage might have actually had a chance to recover, slowly. But he’s not out of the way, is he? I imagine you’re feeling pretty happy about that.” 

John cocks his ear toward her. “‘Out of the way’?” he repeats, feeling slightly incredulous. Is she actually admitting out loud that she desperately wanted that?! He shakes his head. “Yeah, I am happy about that,” he says, not caring if it upsets her. “He’s my best friend. You know what it did to me, losing him the first time, and yet you were more than willing to take him away from me all over again. And I saw how happy you were to see him go.” 

Mary’s mouth twists. “Yeah,” she says curtly. “I was. And do you know why?” 

John crosses his own arms. “No.” 

“Because as long as he’s in your life, you’ll never be able to stop following him around like a little puppy,” Mary says flatly. “And you must know by now that I care more about you, more about us, than anything else in the world. I would do _anything_ to protect that. I know it feels harsh to you, but you have to remember that I’m doing it for your own good. You wanted this to work. We’re having a child together, starting a family. We need to do that with a rock solid foundation. I can’t be married to someone who’s got one foot out the back door all the time.” 

John hears the _back door_ reference and decides to ignore it. “So, what?” he asks, trying very hard not to come across as belligerent. “Are you saying you don’t want to stay married to me?” 

“No!” Mary glares at him. “I’m saying the opposite! I just need to know now, once and for all, if you want that, too. Are you in this or not?” 

John hesitates for only a moment. He already knows what he has to do. “I am,” he says firmly. 

Mary doesn’t smile. She stands up straight and takes a few steps toward him, her eyes unblinking and very serious as she advances. “Then if this is going to work, we need to consider this a new start,” she says. “A lot of wrong has been done – on both sides,” she adds, as though conceding that perhaps she contributed something to this as well, as though it wasn’t _all_ John. “I need to know everything. No matter how ugly. It’s confession time.” 

John raises his eyebrows. “Just for me, or are you planning on making a full confession, too?”

Mary’s face is completely impassive. “I already gave you one and you chose to burn it,” she says coolly. “From here on in, I’m Mary Watson, remember? I’m exactly who you want me to be. This is a fresh start to something that was already very good. This is real,” she says, putting a hand on her belly. “This is us: our baby. Our marriage.” She comes all the way over to him and puts a hand on his cheek. Her face softens. “I’ve missed you,” she says, the old warmth finally returning. 

John inhales and opens his mouth, trying to think of what to say in response to this, but she spares him having to speak, leaning past the barrier of her belly to put her lips to his. His eyes close automatically and he feels nothing. Her lips are the same lips he’s kissed probably hundreds of times before, but his guts are roiling in confusion. Before he can even decide whether or not he’s going to start kissing back, Mary stops. He opens his eyes. 

Her face is very close to his. “Did you miss me?” she asks, her voice light and low at the same time and he’s struck by how green her eyes are in the low light of the bedroom. He always used to think they were blue. Now he isn’t sure. 

“Of course,” he makes himself say. “But – do you think it’s a bit – soon, maybe?” The words are jerky leaving his mouth. 

Mary shakes her head. “Not at all,” she says, nothing at all playful beneath the light tone. “If you’re in, then you’re in. This is what we’re going to do: you tell me everything that happened with you and Sherlock in all that time that you were gone, and then we forget it and leave it behind us. We reforge our own bond. We need that, if we’re going to last. All right?” 

Somehow it doesn’t sound like much of a choice. John hesitates anyway. 

Mary exhales a little and he feels it on his cheek. “Let’s start with what happened between the two of you on the night of the stag do. In detail this time.”

His gut clenches. “Nothing,” he says, but it doesn’t even sound convincing to him. “Nothing happened at all.”

Mary’s expression doesn’t change except for the small, sardonic smile that appears at the corners of her mouth. “Nice try. First off, you said yourself that you touched him ‘a bit’. Secondly, it’s all over your face. You’re a terrible liar, you know. Did Sherlock ever tell you that?” 

John’s jaw clenches without him meaning to. “Yes.” 

Mary smiles but there’s little humour in it. “Do you trust me?” she asks. 

The answer is _No, not for a second_. Not now that he’s seen the light, seen how carefully and precisely Mary has engineered his very thought processes without him ever realising at the time: making him paranoid about not being perceived as gay, making him believe more and more firmly that Sherlock can’t and doesn’t love. He can’t say that, though. Obviously. “Yes.” 

The word is clipped, but Mary accepts it. “Good,” she says. “Take off your jumper and give me your hands.”

“What are you going to – ”

She makes an admonishing sound. “Think of it as spicing up our sex life,” she says. 

“Maybe we should wait until after the baby is born,” John says, knowing that it sounds weak, like procrastination, which is exactly what it is.

“Right, because I’ll _really_ be in the mood after having given birth, with a screaming newborn in the next room,” Mary says, her mouth twisting again. “Maybe you’re just trying to hide something. Or a certain… lack of something.” 

Her eyebrows lift suggestively, but there is something cruel lurking at the corners of her mouth. John pulls off the jumper, holds out his hands and silently surrenders. They are clearly going to do this Mary’s way, whether or not he’s at all into it. It’s the same trap: he can’t refuse anything sexual with her or else he condemns himself to her assessment of him – which isn’t exactly inaccurate, but he sees now that the accusation was meant to drive him away from Sherlock, not closer. He gets what she was trying to do. He watches but doesn’t protest as Mary snaps a pair of handcuffs around his wrists, even though a spike of apprehension pierces through his gut as she does it, nor when she unbuttons and unzips his jeans, sliding them down his legs and makes him step out of them. He feels a bit stupid, standing there in his briefs and socks, but Mary surveys him with evident satisfaction. He still hasn’t said anything to defend himself from her latest accusation, about his lack of arousal. 

“Go stand against that wall with your back to it,” Mary says. “Put your hands on your head.” 

John exhales and does as she asks. “What are we doing?” he asks, trying the _we_ so that it doesn’t sound quite as confrontational. 

“Exercise in relinquishing control,” Mary tells him. “You’re such a control freak. We always have to do everything your way. You’ll like this, I promise.” She smiles and looks genuinely friendly, coming over and massaging gently at his cock through his underwear. John actively tries to resist it, to not react in any way, vocally or physically, but it’s been a _long_ time, and after a few minutes, his cock starts getting hard despite himself. “That’s it,” Mary says approvingly. “ _He’s_ missed this, hasn’t he. Even if you haven’t.” 

John bites the inside of his lip and doesn’t answer, aware that his heart rate is elevated. There is nothing that he can safely say. Mary’s hand slips inside his pants now and goes on stroking him as his cock grows in her hand and pushes out past the waistband. He wills himself not to make any noise, at least, but it’s hard to keep his breaths quiet as they escape through his nose. His treacherous body doesn’t know that it’s Mary, even if his mind does. It’s a body: it can’t help it. Still, though. He supposes that he will have to start having sex with Mary again sooner or later, and that’s not all bad, either, but he was hoping for more time to get used to the idea. He’s well aware that Mary is testing him, trying to prove to both of them that he still wants her. “That’s – nice,” he manages, and it sounds a bit feeble. 

Mary’s eyes are hooded and look slightly reptilian, reminding him of the big confrontation at Baker Street after she shot Sherlock. “The stag night,” she says softly. “Let’s start there. What happened? I don’t need the boring bits. I just need to know what happened that shouldn’t have happened.” 

“Nothing happened,” John says again, the words coming instinctively to his lips. 

Mary’s hand stops moving and she gives him a look of plain disappointment. “Come on, John,” she says angrily. “I need to know these things! For _our_ sake!”

“Nothing happened,” John insists. “I mean that! We just went to a lot of bars and drank too much and then we had a client. That’s all!”

Mary’s eyes probe his. “So what you’re saying is that if we hooked you up to a lie detector and I asked you if anything remotely, even _slightly_ gay happened, you would say no.” She studies him and waits, her brows lifted over half-lidded, unimpressed eyes. 

John thinks of falling asleep on the stairs next to Sherlock and wonders if that counts in Mary’s eyes. He suspects he knows the answer, though. His hesitation gives him away. She makes a smug sound when it shows on his face. “It was nothing big at all,” he mutters, not looking at her face, his cock still in her fist. “Er, we sort of fell asleep on the stairs. He had his back to me. Seriously.” 

“That’s better.” Mary sounds grim. “What else? I want to know every single time you touched him in a way that you know I wouldn’t have liked, if I’d been there.” 

The thing is, John thinks, nothing specific did happen. “I sort of… touched his knee,” he admits, his face heating a little. “It was just to steady myself when I was falling out of my chair, though. I mean it. And after that Mrs Hudson was there with a client for us. That’s it. I swear.”

Mary’s eyes search his. “You swear,” she repeats, and John isn’t sure whether she wants him to say it again or if she’s weighing the words, testing them on her tongue to see whether or not she believes them. Before he can decide if he should ask or not, Mary seems to accept what he’s said and starts touching him again. “What else? During all that time at Baker Street, I’m sure there’s more.” 

John thinks of all of the time he spent taking care of Sherlock after the shot and his throat tries to close. Giving him sponge baths in the hospital when he wasn’t allowed to shower yet. Supporting Sherlock’s weight as he hobbled in his underwear to the loo, one arm draped heavily around John’s shoulders, the other hand white-knuckled around the stand of the morphine drip. Lifting him back into bed. Changing his bandaging. “Just the usual things one would do in caring for a patient who’d recently taken a bullet to the inferior vena cava and liver,” John says tightly, and his cock wilts in Mary’s hand to his simultaneous wince and very private relief. 

Mary sighs and looks down at it. She shakes her head. “Do you remember our wedding vows?” she asks. “They were only seven months ago. Do you still remember what you promised me back in May?” 

John can’t look at her. She is still holding his soft genitals, fingers cupped loosely around his balls. He feels exposed and weak and hates it. He was a captain in the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, damn it. He is not _weak_. But he feels weak at the moment. And oddly, he can barely remember the wedding ceremony at all. Only the reception was particularly memorable. He racks his brain and comes up with the words, from some other wedding or possibly just _every_ other wedding he’s ever attended. “Er – the sickness and health bit, richer or poorer.” He thinks again. “Um. To love and to honour you.”

Mary studies him and when it seems evident that he can’t remember the rest, she says, very gently, “For better or worse.” Her eyes compel him to look into hers, her green gaze lancing through him. “I would say that this is the worst, wouldn’t you? We can’t get much lower than this.” She nods down at his soft cock. “Look at this. When you married me, you gave yourself to me. Body and heart. This is _mine_ , and what am I supposed to do with it, if it belongs to someone else?”

John’s chest feels so tight that he cannot breathe. “You shot him,” he says, the words painful to say. “He made you a vow. Made us a vow.” 

Mary smiles a little and it doesn’t reach her eyes. “But I never made him one. I married you, John. Only you. I’m not sure if either you or he is entirely clear on the concept. I’m sorry, but I don’t give a toss about Sherlock. Not if it’s a choice between you or him.” She puts her lips on his again, not seeming to care that he isn’t kissing back. After a moment she pulls away. “Tell me what happened at Baker Street.” 

John moves his hands slightly where they’re resting on his head and the handcuffs clink. She is not going to unlock him until he answers the question. It’s entirely possible that she even has a lie detector somewhere. He grits his teeth. “Apart from caring for his wound, there was nothing you would consider unacceptable.”

“Nothing?” She knows he’s lying. “Try again. There was something. I know there was. At least one incident. It’s there in your eyes, John. You’re the worst liar I’ve ever met.” Her tone turns sharp. “Look at me. Look at me and tell me what you did.” 

John closes his eyes briefly and opens them again. “We kissed,” he says starkly. He might as well get it over with. “Once. Then I said that I couldn’t do it, because I hadn’t decided yet whether or not I was coming back. After that it never happened again. That’s it. That’s all there was. I don’t have anything else to say about it.” He clamps his jaw shut, looking down, and only risks looking at her after a long moment has passed. 

Her eyes are wet with tears. For a moment she just stands there, swallowing and blinking and when the twin rivers overflow down her cheeks, she doesn’t bother wiping them away. She just stands there, crying and not trying to hide it, her eyes somewhere around his middle, as though looking at his face is too painful. 

John feels a twist of guilt in his gut. He didn’t mean to rub it in. He hadn’t even wanted her to know about it. “I’m… sorry,” he says awkwardly. He’s not sure that he means it, not when he wishes he could go back to that precise moment and fix it. (Never mind. Some chances, lost once, never come again and this is assuredly one of them. There’s no point dwelling on it now.)

Mary sniffs and raises her face again. “Turn around,” she says, and her voice is colder than steel despite the moisture on her cheeks. 

Confused and uncertain, John does it, turning to face the wall and looking back over his shoulder. “What are we…” He doesn’t know what he’s asking, how to word whatever it is. “Mary…”

“Stay there.” Mary walks over to her side of the bed, opens a drawer, and comes back with a few things after a moment. There are a few sounds, including a rubber glove being snapped on. Then Mary leans up against him, her belly pressing him to the wall. “How long?” she asks, her bare hand sliding up his front, trailing through the hair on his belly. 

“How long… what?” 

“How long did you kiss him for?” Mary wants to know, her voice low. “What duration of time?”

“I don’t know ex – ”

“Estimate.” Her hand finds his cock again and begins to rub. “Think about it. The kiss. Try to remember every detail. That should help get you hard again.” 

John closes his eyes and hates her, hates her rubbing it in like this. “Maybe… four minutes,” he says, and her fist tightens almost alarmingly for a second, but then she just starts stroking, firmly enough that his body won’t be able to resist it a second time, he thinks. 

“Four minutes,” she repeats. “That’s a long time.” 

“Not really.” John tries to keep his tone as uninflected as possible. “It was a mistake. I told you. I realised that at the time.”

“You wouldn’t kiss me for four whole minutes now,” Mary says, as though daring him to refuse it. 

How can he, though? “Of course I would,” John says, struggling to sound like he means it. “You’re my wife. My – Mary.” 

“Am I?” The question sounds rhetorical. “I don’t know whose husband you think you are. You cheated on me. And you tried to lie to me about it.” Her hand is still working at his cock, which is gradually hardening. “Has Sherlock ever touched you like this? Tell me the truth, and remember that I’ve got your balls in my hand.” 

John tries not to shiver. Anything that he ever used to feel for her dies permanently with this threat. “No,” he says, very firmly. “Sherlock has never, _ever_ touched me. Not like this. Not ever.”

Mary puts her mouth to his ear. “Because he can’t,” she reminds him, though he knows for a fact that it’s false now. “You know that. That’s why I’m the solution. I can, and I do. Sherlock hasn’t got it in him to waste his time on sentiment. You _know_ that.” 

When she says these things, it always sounds so convincing, and yet it’s just not accurate. “I know,” John says. His erection is coming along a treat. He wishes he knew what she’s got in mind. 

He finds out soon enough. Suddenly Mary’s rubber-coated fingers are probing at his arse. He lets out a sound of surprise and she shushes him. “Did you like it?” she asks, the question blunt as she works two fingers into his body. “Kissing him.” 

John struggles mightily for the lie. “I – it was – confusing,” he gets out, trying not to actively squirm away from her. “Mary – what are you doing?” 

She ignores the question, her fingers twisting within him like snakes. “Define ‘confusing’.” 

He breathes deeply. “It was – look, Mary, I really don’t like this. I don’t like what we’re doing. Could we please do something else?” 

“No. Answer the question.” Mary is relentless, and all he can hear now are tones of voice that match her face that night at Baker Street. There is anguish in there; he’s certain of that. But this is Mary as a professional now. Getting a job done. “How was the kiss confusing?” she repeats, with all the calm repetition of a professional interrogator. 

She presses a finger into John’s prostate and he makes a sound he didn’t mean to make. His cock gives a throb in Mary’s hand. “I – ” He swallows. “I didn’t – I’m not really – er – into Sherlock – like that, I – I don’t know why I – let it – I didn’t want to, it was his idea, but I – I was just trying to be nice – let him down easy.” He can barely talk; having her fingers in him is distracting, as is her ungloved hand on his cock. Her belly is pressing into his side and back a bit and it’s not particularly arousing but that part is secondary. 

“Let him down easy,” Mary repeats. “So he initiated it?” 

“Yes! I never would have – ” John stops, his breath heaving out as she presses into his prostate again. 

“And you just… went along with it. For four minutes.” Mary waits, and when he doesn’t answer, she follows it with another question. “Did he use his tongue?” 

John remembers the feeling of Sherlock’s tongue against his and shivers again, which she can’t possibly miss. Hopefully she’ll think it’s because of what she’s doing. “Yes.” 

“And you went along with that, too. Stuck your tongue into his mouth and kissed him the way you would have kissed me.” Mary doesn’t wait for his answer this time, taking her fingers from his body and leaning away for a moment. Then she’s back and without warning, pushes something hard and entirely too big into John’s body. 

He cries out in surprise, pain, and some anger. “Ahh – ow, fuck! Mary, what is – what are you doing?”

She shoves the object in even further. “You seemed to like it with fingers, so I assumed you’d like a dick,” she says shortly. “If you think Sherlock could actually get it up for you, how gentle do you think he’d have actually been with you – the man who drugs you and forgets you at crime scenes? Who made you watch him kill himself? How slowly do you think he’d go? How much do you think he’d care if it hurt you? I want to know, John.” 

John doesn’t say that he’s always imagined it more the other way, with him behind Sherlock, slowly entering his body. He’s certainly jerked off to thoughts of that, though there’s nothing he would have been completely averse to, not with Sherlock. His body is screaming with pain, though, and he cannot concentrate. The dildo is stretching him too far, possibly tearing the skin. “It hurts,” he says honestly, his eyes watering in pain. “Please, Mary – I know you’re angry with me, but please take it out!” He knows that he could probably overpower her if it came to that, and he doesn’t think that she would hurt him seriously, but one never knows. Having it in him feels humiliating and he’s aware of his cheeks flaming. 

“No.” The word is soft and almost sweet. She twists the dildo within him. “Is this what you imagined, with him?”

“I didn’t imagine – anything – ” His eyes water even harder, tears forming and threatening to slip down his cheeks. 

“Liar.” Mary’s voice is too gentle. “Remember, darling, I’ve witnessed you dreaming about him. Obviously those come from your real fantasies.” She bends even closer. “Do you know what this is, John?” 

“A dildo,” he says, his voice thick with pain. 

She clicks her tongue in disapproval. “Not this,” she says, giving it another twist. “This, in general. This bedroom. This night.” 

John pauses. “Then no.” 

Her face is right at his ear. “Punishment,” she says, almost seductively. “You cheated on me. Now you’re paying for it. And after this, we get our clean slate. That’s how it works. So I hope you like the thought of taking it like a man, because I’m fucking you, and I’m going to make you like it.” 

Her hand gives him a squeeze and John can’t believe that his body is responding positively to it despite the pain. “You’re hurting me.” His eyes are still watering. “Can’t you just give me the silent treatment or something?” 

That earns him a sharp shove of the dildo, making his breath punch out in a burst of pain. “You like this,” Mary informs him. “You’re practically dripping.” She squeezes his cock again, which has not softened. Not this time. 

John closes his mouth and eyes both. Maybe if he just lets Mary play her stupid game, it will be over sooner and then they can go back to whatever normal is supposed to be now. He cannot deny that some part of him does like it in certain ways, but it doesn’t lessen the fact that it’s too hard, too big, that he feels humiliated by it, that he never wanted this. Not like this, and not with her, physical response notwithstanding. 

Mary thrusts the dildo in and out of him. “You’re bleeding,” she says, her voice smooth and soft. 

“I told you it hurts.” John doesn’t open his eyes, his arse aching even though his prostate is still sparking with pleasure that he does not want to be experiencing right now. 

“Good.” Mary sounds grimly satisfied. “It needs to hurt. It needs to hurt for every minute that you left me for him. For that kiss. For having cheated. I want you to hurt as much as I hurt while you were gone. For every time you hurt me because of him.” 

John bows his face, his forehead resting against his manacled hands, his watering eyes spilling over. He has never been violated this way before and everything about it hurts, including the fact that he feels any physical pleasure at all. It’s a peculiar sensation, experiencing it as pleasure on one scale and horror on the other. The dildo is large, or at least it feels enormous, made of something hard and inflexible, and Mary is jabbing into his body viciously, her other hand jerking at his cock. He hopes that she won’t try to blame this on pregnancy hormones or something equally ridiculous. If he had any less pride, he’d report her for assault, but if he hasn’t turned her in for having tried to kill Sherlock, she must know that he wouldn’t report her for this, either. He cannot believe that he ever thought she could have known Sherlock better than he does, that he ever thought that he missed her. The enormity of his mistake is what is battering his body and squeezing out what will be the most humiliating orgasm of his life. At least it’s getting closer. Maybe once he comes, Mary will stop. The tears on his cheeks are there from the pain, but there’s humiliation in there, too. If he’d known she was going to do this, he never would have allowed her to put the handcuffs on him, never went along with this, thinking that he could just let her have things her way and get it over with. He never expected this. 

Mary can sense his orgasm growing closer. “You’re getting there,” she comments. “You must be getting old, though – you were never this slow before. Even on your bad days. Does it still hurt?” 

John doesn’t answer, struggling internally between wanting to come and wanting not to. 

Mary gives a soft laugh through her nose. “You can’t even decide whether you want to or not,” she says, as though reading his mind. She angles the dildo at his prostate and gives a crow of laughter again when his breath sucks in hard. “That’s it,” she says approvingly. 

John can feel his breath shaking, the orgasm circling closer and closer, his balls full and heavy and tight, his cock harder than a rod in Mary’s hand. It’s going to happen whether he wants it to – or so he thinks. He shudders and – 

Mary stops, letting go of him and pulling out the dildo suddenly. 

John groans in agonising frustration. “Mary, come _on_ – Jesus!”

Mary shushes him. “Do you love Sherlock?” Her voice is suddenly harsh. 

“What are you – ” John’s words stop and he stiffens in sudden pain, a sharp cry tearing from his throat. She is cutting him, cutting the skin of his back. “What is – ” He can hear himself, hear how panicked he sounds. 

“Do you love him?” she repeats. 

“Mary – ” John can feel warm blood welling from the cut. He breathes deeply, his breath shaking. “I came back to you. It doesn’t matter. I’ve made the decision to keep my word to you. My vows.”

“Yes, but when your actions say one thing and your heart says another, which do you think I care more about?” Mary’s hand is still, the sharpness of the blade still digging into his skin. “Tell me that you love him. I already know. I want to hear you say it. Own it, John.” When he doesn’t answer, she raises her voice. “Say it!” 

John swallows around the hardness in his throat and speaks to the floor, his voice coming out dull and dry. “It doesn’t even matter, you know. We’ll never be together, him and I. But if you want to hear me say it so badly, then fine. Have it your way. Yes: I love him.”

For a moment Mary doesn’t react. Then the blade begins to move again, slicing through his skin. “Don’t move,” she says in a tone of concentration. The razor is curving over his left shoulder blade, rising upward before descending toward the back of his armpit. She brings it around, slanting down and inward and suddenly he knows what she’s carving. When the _S_ is finished, blood streaming hotly down the left side of his back from it, she carves the long legs of the _H_ on the right, followed by the crosspiece. And then she goes over all of it again, deepening the cuts. “Now it will be as obvious to everyone else that you cheated on me with him. You are mine, mine to mark as I choose. I’ve branded you with his precious initials so that you’ll always remember what happens when you cheat. You will never do it again.”

John breathes into the wall, his eyes wet with pain. 

She takes him by the shoulders and turns him around, pushing his streaming back up against the bedroom wall, his hands still over his head. Even as he grunts with pain, she gets a slim, very strong hand around his throat, blocking his airflow by about ninety percent. Her eyes are narrowed and glittering. Her other hand is pinning his manacled wrists to the wall above his head, trapping him in place. “You thought you could get away with it, didn’t you.” Her voice is colder than anything he’s ever heard, colder than Moriarty’s. “Even knowing who I am, what I am, you thought you could just treat me this way. Leave me. Cheat on me. Love someone else. And then come back to me when you discovered that I was right all along and that the person you love is an emotionless machine. I should have killed him.” Her gaze bores into his, shifting slightly from one eye to the other as he tries desperately to suck in enough breath. “You are mine,” Mary tells him again, the words breathed like a vow. “You gave me your word and I intend to hold you to it. You will never cheat on me again. You will never, _ever_ touch him again. You will never see him again. Do you understand? Never. And you will not touch yourself, thinking of him. You know what I’m capable of. If you touch yourself tonight after this, I will kill him. That’s a promise. You sleep on the sofa, and if I see your mess in the morning, I’ll know you cheated. I’ll know where to look for tissues, and you know that if you do it in the loo, I’ll hear it. If you’re worried that you’ll come in your sleep, keep yourself awake. I want your balls to be aching so hard that they’re purple by morning. If you behave yourself, then I’ll let you make love to me. But this thing with Sherlock: that ends _now_. Do you understand?” 

John is on the brink of passing out, but he hears every word that Mary utters. He can’t speak, so he nods, his eyes still watering. 

“Good.” Mary releases him and he grasps at his throat with both manacled hands, coughing. She gets the key from the dresser and unlocks his wrists, staying right where she is in front of him. “Tell me honestly: are you only staying with me to keep him safe from me?”

John rubs at his sore throat, his bloodied back sticking to the wallpaper. “Yes,” he says starkly. He doesn’t even care any more. He expects Mary to react somehow, but she simply nods. 

“Don’t think that I won’t keep my word, John,” she says. “It hurts me to have to do this to you, but it’s for your own good. It’s for _us_. I’m just trying to save our marriage. You know that I would do anything for that. It’s only because I love you.” She smiles then, which seems incredible to John. Careful not to let any part of herself brush against his aching cock, Mary bends forward over her belly and kisses him on the cheek. “Go on and get settled on the sofa. And don’t bleed on it, either. You can clean this mess up tomorrow.” 

She is giving him orders, John thinks hazily, still dizzy from lack of oxygen and the pain in his back. There is only one person in his life from whom he’s ever accepted orders outside the military, and it’s not Mary. He lurches across the bedroom, stopping only long enough to collect his jeans, jumper, and underwear and wrenches open the door. He wants to lock himself in the bathroom, anywhere that’s away from Mary, but he knows that she will insist on monitoring him. It’s a spacious enough flat but there is only one bedroom, the sitting room, the kitchen, and the loo which adjoins to both the corridor and the bedroom. His arse is aching internally and externally, wet blood between his cheeks and it needs attention, and then there’s his back. If he runs the water in the kitchen sink, will Mary think he’s using it as a noise cover to hide the fact that he’s touching himself? It’s the last thing he feels like doing at the moment, though his swollen testicles might not agree. His cock is still unbelievably hard, even after the cutting, pointing stiffly upward. Even putting his underwear back on right now would be torture. He retrieves two clean tea towels from the kitchen and puts them down on the sofa, then gets himself onto it. There is a blanket folded at one end. John pulls it over himself and huddles under it. 

He is shivering, he realises, and not with cold. The aftermath of the dildo attack and then the razor is settling over him like dew on a spider web, leaving him feeling turned inside out, exposed, and damaged. He put himself utterly at her mercy in the name of making peace, so that they could cobble together some manner of future out of the mess that is their lives now. It was a mistake. It was a mistake to come back here. But where can he even go now? 

The answer is already there in his head. But the question is really how many times he can go back to Baker Street when things with Mary take a turn for the worse. Will Sherlock let him just keep coming back, over and over again? Allow Baker Street, the place that was _their_ home, the place where they lived _their_ shared life together, as John’s marital emergency crash pad? (Could John himself allow for that to happen? Allow himself to treat Sherlock that way, never mind Baker Street?) Then again, if he leaves and goes somewhere else, a hotel or Harry’s or something, the first place Mary would look for him is Baker Street. John thinks of her arriving there, angry over his having left. She would assume that Sherlock is lying when he denies knowing where John is. And she would shoot him again. No: he has to go to Baker Street. It’s the only option. 

Time passes, the flat dark and silent. He doesn’t know whether or not Mary is sleeping, but he can feel her vigilance as clearly as a red glowing light emitting from the bedroom. His erection has finally wilted, but his balls are indeed aching, and his arse still hurts. If he doesn’t see to the tearing of the skin made by the dildo, the cuts could easily infect from the bacteria in the area and become very problematic, not to mention even more painful. When it’s been two hours, John uncurls himself from the sofa as quietly as he possibly can. The tea towels are stuck to his back, attached by the blood drying, the coagulation binding to the fibres. His limbs are stiff and sore and his jaw is cramped from him clenching his teeth as he shivered. He moves stealthily across the sitting room to the kitchen and eases open a drawer with as little noise as possible to extract a clean dishcloth. Holding it to the tap, John runs the water just enough to wet it, squeezing it out quietly, and reaches behind himself to gingerly wipe the area clean. With the streetlight coming in the kitchen window, he can see spots of blood on the cloth and dabs carefully at himself again, cleaning the cuts.

He thinks of how this would be seen if he were a woman as he rinses the cloth with as little noise as possible. He hangs it to dry and goes back to the sofa, hiding his sore body beneath the blanket. If he were a woman, the word _abuse_ would be on people’s lips, or even _rape_. It doesn’t matter that they’re married. He told her that he didn’t want it, asked her to stop. Told her that it hurt, and she continued. She’d wanted it to hurt: she was very explicit on that point. He thinks of the way she twisted his own thoughts and made him so paranoid about being perceived as gay, particularly where Sherlock is concerned, how she convinced him so thoroughly that Sherlock doesn’t even have feelings the way other people do. That could be considered abuse, too, he thinks. The thought makes him feel angry and ashamed. He was an army captain, a soldier with three tours’ experience in active war zones. People like him aren’t supposed to be abuse victims. He is not a victim. And yet, here he is. He knows that he allowed her to bind his hands, that he turned around when she told him to. He knows that if he had really tried, he could have overpowered her physically, but she’d made him fear the consequences of… disobedience. There is no other word for it. Even now, he is lying on his side on the sofa, his body aching in more than one way, and it doesn’t matter that he is physically stronger. Mary has threatened very explicitly to kill Sherlock. She’s already tried once; there is nothing to prevent her from a second attempt.

All of her machinations have led to this point, to making John feel that he cannot leave her for fear of what she would do in retaliation. _I can’t stay here,_ he thinks, there in the dark. _It doesn’t matter what I promised. It doesn’t matter that I fucked everything up with Sherlock. I can’t stay with Mary. I just can’t._ But what will she do if he leaves? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t even have his SIG with him; Sherlock took it from his coat pocket to shoot Magnussen and he never got it back and doesn’t know what’s become of it. Does he even have his wallet with him, or is it in the bedroom? John gets off the sofa again and picks up his jeans, feeling for it in the back pocket. With relief, he discovers that it’s there. That’s one problem sorted, then. The real question is how the hell he can leave the flat without Mary hearing and waking at once. He stands there, holding his jeans and thinking, and eventually it comes to him: it will be entirely easier if he just leaves in the morning, just gets dressed and goes to work as though everything is normal. (But will Mary expect them to have sex first? If so, can he find a reasonable way to get out of it? Will she hurt him again if he goes along with it?) John stands there, trying to make up his mind. No, he decides. No sex. Absolutely not. Never again. He puts his underwear and jeans on and creeps quietly across the sitting room to retrieve his laptop and slides it into his workbag. He does occasionally take his laptop to work, so this shouldn’t appear suspicious. He doesn’t care about anything else he owns, but his old drafts of his blog posts are on there, along with some very private writing that he did after Sherlock’s death, or what he’d thought was Sherlock’s death. Mary has probably read it all. The thought makes him feel sick. That, on top of everything else. Still: they are his and he wants to keep them. 

He winces as he peels the tea towels from his back. The blood has mostly dried, but his skin begins to bleed again where the towels have stuck. When it feels mostly dry awhile later, he puts his jumper back on and gets back under the blanket to wait for dawn. He does not allow himself to sleep, his entire frame tense. 

Mary is quiet but no different on the surface when she emerges from the bedroom a few hours later. John keeps himself still and non-reactionary when she comes over to inspect him, unzipping his jeans. He refuses to let her see him wince as she slides cool fingers into his underwear to feel his balls, still uncomfortably swollen and unspent. She makes a pleased sound. “Good,” she says. “You behaved yourself. That’s good.” Her fingers move to his cock and start to close but his hand closes hard around her wrist before she can start touching him in earnest. 

“No.” The word is harsh. “Not now.”

She pulls away, looking confusion into his eyes. “John, I told you that I would – ”

“Not now,” John repeats. “I need to go to work. I’ve got an early appointment. Later. Tonight.” He doesn’t make it a question. 

Mary frowns, looking disappointed. “If you can last that long, then,” she says, sounding dubious. 

John decides not to tell her that he’s not actually seventeen and is capable of exercising a little bit of control over himself by now. He stands up and manages to keep his face from showing any pain, betraying neither the ache in his arse nor the sharper pain of his back. “I’ll see you later,” he says. 

“Aren’t you going to eat breakfast?” Mary’s eyes are tracking him like a predator despite the levity of her tone. Anyone just listening would think that she is nothing more than a concerned wife. 

“I’m not hungry,” John says shortly. “If I need to, I’ll duck out to the café across the road or something.”

Mary nods, accepting this. “Come straight home,” she says, her voice even and almost entirely uninflected, but he can hear it now: the constant threat. “I’ll want to get you out of those clothes as soon as you walk through the door.” 

She smiles and John somehow manages to force himself to smile back. “Right,” he says, and turns away before the smile can become a grimace. “Later, then.” He puts on his coat and shoes as quickly as he can without it looking like he’s rushing through it, then picks up his bag and straightens up. “Bye.” 

“Bye darling,” Mary says affectionately, and John sets off from the house in the direction of the bus stop. 

He has no doubt whatsoever that she will watch him until he is out of sight. He walks carefully, keeping his face rigidly in line, and resists the urge to relax when he’s out of sight of the house. Who knows what sort of surveillance she might have? By now, he wouldn’t put anything past her. He rides the first bus for thirty-five minutes, trying not to lean against the back of the seat or put weight on his arse the wrong ways, and is horribly uncomfortable. He changes lines, and feels a lump come into his throat of plain relief when he gets off at the Baker Street stop. He fits his key to the lock and shuts the door behind him, half-afraid that Mary will somehow be here ahead of him. 

He starts up the stairs, feeling equally unsure of himself where Sherlock is concerned. There’s no time to be relieved about his stealthy escape. Not yet. 

*


	4. Chapter 4

**Part IV**

 

With pain, John mounts the seventeen stairs of 221B Baker Street. His home. His real home. This time, if Sherlock will permit it, he is not going to leave again. After how he treated Sherlock, he has no right to come back now. Not after having kissed him and panicked like that, believing Sherlock incapable of love even after having seen the scars on his back. He wonders if one of the reasons Sherlock kissed him that day was that he’d thought John finally understood what he felt because of having seen the scars. He feels badly all over again. And then the way he’d left Sherlock on Christmas Day, without even telling him that he was going to. Not that Sherlock cares much about Christmas, but still. 

It’s early and the flat is quiet as John creeps inside. It’s half past eight and Sherlock is rarely awake much before ten unless there’s a case on. John glances into the kitchen and sitting room but doesn’t see Sherlock, so he heads up the stairs to his room. He needs to see to his injuries. There’s not much he could possibly do for his back, though. Sherlock is the only one who could treat it; if he were to go to a clinic or a hospital, they would be forced to ask the awkward questions about who had done that to him, and the police would get involved and too many questions would be asked. And he is too ashamed to have Sherlock see the cuts that form his initials. Sherlock would ask, and John would have to tell him what Mary has done to him. The other part will be hard enough to treat, but at least he can disinfect the cuts himself. And take a shower, perhaps. Yes. The sound of the water might wake Sherlock. He used to sleep through John’s showers regularly when he lived there, but given that he supposedly lives alone at the moment, perhaps the sound of the shower will wake him. It can’t be helped, and he’ll find out sooner or later that John has come back, anyway. 

John goes quietly downstairs and shuts himself in the loo, very aware of Sherlock’s sleeping presence on the other side of the door. He thinks of his very direct statement to Mary, _I love him_. It’s true. It’s horribly true, and he’s treated Sherlock abominably. He glances at himself in the mirror, his reflection giving him a dirty look. He gets his jumper and jeans off with difficulty, then works his underwear off even more carefully. There are spots of blood staining the back. He sets them down and has a look over his shoulder at his back. It’s ugly. Mary’s cuts went deeply enough that there will be ridged scars when they heal. It was messily done, scratches and slashes all over his skin, but the _S_ and _H_ are unmistakeably clear. She meant to mark him with the shame of having been caught cheating, if a single kiss even counts as cheating. The truth is that he does belong to Sherlock, though. Whether or not Sherlock will have him, this is true. 

He disinfects the other cuts, wincing as they sting, then turns on the shower, keeping the water just barely warm. He gets in facing the stream and it still hurts when it runs down over his back. For a long moment he just stands there, letting it flow over his head. It’s not accurate to feel safe here, but even with things as uncertain as they are with Sherlock, and knowing that Mary could come bursting in at any point as soon as she figures out that he is not at work, he nevertheless feels some comfort at being back here. It’s small compared to how lost and broken and stupid he feels, but it’s something. 

He washes his hair, careful to rinse with his head bowed forward, but even so the suds run into the open wounds on his back and sting fiercely and he has to bite his lip to keep from crying out. He rinses the tender skin carefully. Once the pain has subsided, John looks down and notices that his still-unsatisfied erection has come back. Force of habit, he supposes; he nearly always gets himself off in the shower. For a minute he just stands there, looking at it. It feels as though Mary has ruined this activity forever, coupling it permanently in his head with the thought of her threats. That somehow she would always know that he’d done it, always suspecting that he’d thought of Sherlock while doing it. That she would kill Sherlock over it if she were to find out. Nonetheless, his balls are still sore from last night and it might be better to just make himself come, get it out of himself. He uses Sherlock’s expensive shower gel to wash, hoping that the scent will make him think of Sherlock rather than Mary and help him forget that this erection was Mary’s doing, that he’d had it while she battered his body with the unwelcome invasion of the dildo. He tries to think of the one kiss he and Sherlock had, but memories of it are spoiled by what he did afterward. In the end, there is nothing he can safely think of except the frantic need to get off, and he stops trying to fantasise about something and just jerks himself off until his aching body finally erupts over his fist. And even so, his first thought is of panic, that Mary will somehow know and punish him for it. 

She really got herself into his head, John thinks, hating this. How had he not seen it sooner? How had he missed how incredibly manipulative she was? He was always so willing to see it in Sherlock, so ready to assume the worst of him sometimes. Why not with Mary? Was it just that he’d been so desperate to throw himself at the first good thing he thought he’d found during the all-consuming vacuum of his grief? How opportunistic Mary had to have been, moving in on someone when all of his defensives were down and bending his mind and perceptions to her own. He’d always sighed a little when people used to assume he and Sherlock were a couple, but he honestly hadn’t even really minded it all that much. He’d never had that instantaneous, instinctive _I’m-not-gay_ response before Mary had come into his life. Before that, he might have even admitted in the right circumstances, in front of someone he trusted, that he _could_ have got involved with a bloke if a situation led that way. That he hadn’t so far, but that it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. 

He shuts off the water and steps out, drying himself as carefully as he can. It would be easier to just dress his lower half and let his back air dry, but he refuses to take the chance of Sherlock seeing it. One day, somehow, it will come up, he supposes, but he’s not in any rush for that to happen. He thinks suddenly of how carefully Sherlock must have worked to conceal his scars from John during all that time that John was caring for him. Always wearing buttoned shirts that he could simply unbutton for John to change the bandaging, shrugging and saying it wasn’t necessary during his hospital sponge baths for John to wash his back. Of course everything is clearer in hindsight, but still. John gingerly dresses himself and listens for a moment before leaving the bathroom: there is no sound from Sherlock’s room, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. He hangs his towel and goes into the kitchen to put on some tea. It seems a bit presumptuous to start cooking for himself or something when he hasn’t even asked Sherlock if he can stay, or move back in, but surely tea would be all right. Not long after the water boils and he sets it to steeping in the teapot, Sherlock’s door opens. John steels himself, his heartbeat accelerating. 

There are eight or nine steps and then Sherlock appears in the kitchen. He’s dressed in his pyjamas and old blue dressing gown, his hair a bit rumpled, and the sight of him somehow brings John’s heart into his throat. It’s only so recently that he’d thought he would have to somehow make his unwilling mind believe that he would never see Sherlock again. For a moment, neither of them says anything, their eyes on each other’s. Then Sherlock blinks. “John.”

“Er, hi,” John says, feeling colossally stupid. He doesn’t know how to start, so he says, inanely, “I made tea…”

Sherlock doesn’t seem to register his words for a moment, looking confused. Then his eyes shift to the teapot and he seems to grasp John’s misdirection. “Yes,” he says slowly, and he continues, speaking to it rather than to John. “It’s rather early for a visit. Not that you’re not welcome, of course,” he adds politely, though the wariness is still there. 

John clears his throat. “Er, yeah,” he says. “I – wondered if I could – well – stay.”

Sherlock’s lips tighten only just perceptibly. For a moment he seems to think about this. Then, “For how long this time?” 

John winces internally. “I don’t… know, exactly.” Part of him wants to say that he never wants to leave again, but he’s not ready for that conversation. For the grovelling explanations it will take to illustrate the fact that he was a blind idiot who treated Sherlock horribly. Not now. Not with his back still bleating with pain, the pulse in his arse thudding in reminder of what happened to it last night. 

Sherlock’s eyes find his, as sharply pinpointed as blue laser beams. “You don’t know.”

John swallows, dropping his own gaze. “Well – indefinitely, I was hoping? I know I’ve no right to ask that, but – ”

He stops, and Sherlock doesn’t offer to suggest an ending to his sentence. “Yes,” he says, a bit shortly, after a moment has gone by. “You can stay.” 

“Thank you,” John says to the table, feeling like a jerk for not explaining or apologising or – any of the other things he should be doing at the moment, but he just isn’t ready to explain the rest just yet. 

Sherlock comes over and pours himself a cup of tea, steadfastly not looking at him. He adds sugar and then milk in silence, stirs, then sets the spoon down and drinks, still standing. “Have you left Mary, then?” he asks at last. 

“Yeah,” John says, very quietly. 

Sherlock doesn’t respond. The silence lengthens, John barely breathing. Then Sherlock takes the tea and leaves the kitchen without a word, disappearing into the loo. John hears the sound of the shower running and exhales, his shoulders and back tense. He makes toast and eats it and is in the sitting room at the desk when Sherlock emerges from his room again thirty-five minutes later. Without looking at John, he crosses to his coat and puts it on.

John feels a twinge of alarm. “Where are you going?” he asks. 

“Out.” Sherlock’s voice is clipped. “Walk.”

John thinks of Mary. “Does it have to be now?” he asks, really not wanting to explain, but he can’t just let Sherlock go out there all alone. 

“Yes.” Sherlock bends and laces his shoes. “I need to think.” 

John hesitates, then realises he has no choice. “I’m sorry to ask this,” he says awkwardly, “but could you – is there any chance you could think from inside the house? If it’s me you – er, need space from, I could go upstairs, if you want?” 

Sherlock frowns at him, the crease of his nose wrinkling the way it does when he’s particularly perplexed or annoyed. “What is this, John? What’s the issue with my going for a walk?” 

John grits his teeth. “It would be safer if you didn’t go out. I don’t really want to say anything more about that. I just – if you could stay in, I would really appreciate it. You don’t have to talk to me or anything.”

Sherlock sighs and puts a hand on the door frame, leaning on it and looking down rather than at him. “It’s not that, John. I just – I don’t know what this is. Are you only here because you have nowhere else to go, having left the wife you just went back to mere days ago?” 

His words come at John like a pummelling of fists and he cringes. He wrenches himself out of the chair and goes to the mantle, putting more distance between them. “No,” he says jerkily. “But – ” He stops, clenching his arms around himself. “Look, I can’t talk about it. Not yet. I’m – I’m a fucking mess right now, all right?” he bursts out, his voice tight. 

He can sense rather than see Sherlock’s shoulders release slightly. “John…” he begins, his entire tone less harsh and more uncertain. He takes a few steps across the sitting room. “What’s going on?” 

He sounds as ill-at-ease as John feels. John can’t speak. His throat is closed and he doesn’t have the words to explain himself. Exhaustion from his sleepless night is washing over him in floods, his eyes gritty and sore, and he feels tired and upset and like his entire world is falling apart yet again. 

Sherlock watches him carefully, watching him trying to come up with words and failing. After a few minutes of this, he comes over. He takes off his coat, not taking his eyes from John. “You’re not okay.” It’s not a question and he’s not expecting an answer. “Of course you aren’t,” he says, almost to himself. He comes nearer still, hesitates, then puts his arms around John’s shoulders. John allows himself to be pulled closer, not moving to return the gesture, but one of Sherlock’s hands inadvertently lands directly on one of the open cuts and John stiffens without meaning to. Sherlock starts and hastily lets go of him. “What – are you all right?” he asks, taking John by the shoulders instead, peering into his face. 

John’s teeth are trying to chatter. “I’m – fine,” he gets out, avoiding Sherlock’s gaze. 

Sherlock studies him, frowning intently. “No you’re not,” he counters. “Have you been injured?” 

John swallows. “I’ll be fine,” he revises, his voice stiff. 

“John – ” Sherlock objects, and John lashes out. 

“Just let it go, will you?” The angry words come pouring out of his mouth before he can stop them and he immediately hates himself for the look that passes across Sherlock’s features before being replaced by his usual stubbornness. 

“I want to know what made you wince like that,” Sherlock insists, undeterred. “Come on, John. I just want to know if you need help or something. Please.” His mouth tightens even more. “How long did you spend caring for me after I was shot?” He tactfully leaves off saying Mary’s name. “You could at least tell me if you’ve been hurt somehow.” 

John takes a deep breath, his fists clenched. He can’t look Sherlock in the eye. “I don’t want to tell you,” he says, his stomach in knots. “It’s – humiliating.”

This gives Sherlock pause. “Can I ask in what way?” 

The exhaustion is bringing everything to the surface and John is perilously close to losing control of his emotions. There’s nothing for it but to either tell Sherlock or let himself be badgered by his questions until he gives in. He holds out a moment longer. “Does it have to be now?” he asks, still not looking at Sherlock. 

“You’re in pain,” Sherlock says quietly, but there is uncertainty in his voice. “John – I’m not trying to – pry, or force you to tell me, but – I wish I knew what was happening. Why you came back. What’s happened to you.” 

John takes another deep, shuddering breath. “Mary found out that we… kissed,” he says, the word coming out awkwardly. He can’t lift his eyes to Sherlock’s to see his reaction to this, but the silence that follows is eloquent. They haven’t made reference to the kiss since the night it happened. 

After a moment Sherlock prods, very gently. “And…?” 

John hesitates, then gingerly takes off his jumper. Without saying a word, he turns around and shows Sherlock his back. Sherlock’s hissed intake of breath is somehow vindicating, despite the wells of shame and humiliation drowning him at the moment. 

When he finds his voice after a long moment of silence, Sherlock sounds both agonised and appalled. “Mary did this to you,” he breathes, his voice hoarse. He sounds shocked, but at the same time as though he finally understands something. “Oh God, John. She – ” He stops, as though fearful of saying the wrong thing, then restarts carefully. “And you couldn’t have gone to a clinic like this. Of course not. Would you… permit me to treat this for you? It’s the least I could do, after everything you’ve done for me.” 

John’s eyes are closed and wet. He manages to nod. 

“Come on,” Sherlock says. He reaches as though to take John by the arm, but stops himself from actually touching John at the last moment. His lips compress a little and instead he nods toward the loo. 

John follows him blindly down the corridor, the humiliation stinging as much as the slices in his skin. Sherlock hasn’t said anything about the fact that it’s his initials marked on John’s skin. In the loo, Sherlock is already rummaging through the first aid kit. “The polysporin,” John says, turning to bend forward over the sink. He doesn’t want to see his reflection or Sherlock’s in the mirror. Not like this. 

Sherlock finds it and comes to stand behind him. “This was recent,” he observes. “Last night?” 

John nods and tries not to grimace as Sherlock begins to dab ointment on the cuts as lightly as possible. 

“You don’t want to talk about it,” Sherlock says, his powers of deduction as sharp as ever. “I can understand that. Look – can I just – what if I asked just a question or two, and if you don’t want to answer, you don’t have to. Would that be all right?” 

“I suppose,” John mumbles, wincing. 

“Sorry,” Sherlock says, meaning the bleeding cut he just touched. There’s a moment of thought on his part. “Had she ever done anything like this before?” 

“No,” John says, closing his eyes again. “Not – resulting in physical harm, per se.” He wonders whether or not orgasm denial counts. 

Sherlock’s mind whirs almost audibly as he attempts to process this. “But other forms of abuse,” he says astutely. When John doesn’t deny this, he presses it. “Emotional, I would assume.” 

John doesn’t open his eyes. “You came to that idea quickly.” His mouth is dry. 

“She’s very manipulative.” Sherlock’s hands are swift and gentle, but it still hurts as he applies the cream to John’s lower back. He’s on the _H_ now. “Did you ever find that she would twist your perceptions of things? Correct something you thought you had observed or experienced?” 

It’s as though he already knows. “Yes,” John says, the word feeling dead on his tongue. Even admitting it feels humiliating. “Frequently.”

“It’s called gaslighting,” Sherlock tells him, his voice studiedly even. “It has a name. It’s a real thing. It’s a technique of control and it’s very insidious. And you’re not the only person to have experienced it.”

“Is that supposed to be comforting?” John asks, opening his eyes but only looking at the sink. 

Sherlock’s hands still. “Yes,” he says, sounding slightly surprised by the question. “It means that it was never just in your imagination, which most people tend to think when it happens to them. It was never you. You were never wrong.”

John suddenly feels overwhelmed, this one statement pushing him too close to the line of losing control completely. His eyes are wet again and he reaches up to scrub roughly at them. “Can we stop talking about this now?” he asks, his voice trembling a little. 

Sherlock inhales and makes a small sound, possibly of self-reproach. “Of course,” he says swiftly. “Thank you for telling me. I won’t ask again. If you want to talk about it, I’m here. Or perhaps you would prefer to make an appointment with – Ella, is it?” He puts the lid back on the ointment, not waiting for John to respond. “Have you slept?” 

Mutely John shakes his head. 

“I thought not. You look exhausted,” Sherlock says briskly. “Why don’t you go and sleep in my room? It doesn’t matter if the polysporin gets on the sheets.” 

His voice is propelling John toward the bedroom already, but even so, he asks, “Why your room?” 

“It’s neutral,” Sherlock tells him. “No memories. Of any kind. And I’ll be nearby in case you need anything.”

“I won’t need anything,” John mumbles, but he’s not really objecting. Sherlock’s logic has escaped him, but he doesn’t really care. He stumbles into the bedroom, Sherlock pulling back the blankets of the unmade bed and shaking them out. John gets himself out of his jeans and lies down on his front in his socks and underwear. 

Sherlock puts the blankets over his arse, leaving his back untouched. “Get some sleep,” he says. “When you’re awake, we’ll order in or something. Sleep as long as you want.”

“Okay.” John gets the word out with effort, his tongue heavy with fatigue and the emotional exhaustion of having shown Sherlock the cuts. Sherlock hasn’t pitied him, at least not overtly. Not yet, at least. That’s one small mercy. 

Sherlock goes back toward the loo, then stops and turns back. “John… I’m glad you came back,” he says. “I’m glad you came to me. It was the right decision. You can always come back here, you know. I’ll – always want you here. I hope you know that.” 

_I do now,_ John wants to tell him, but his eyes are already closing. He manages to make a sound to show that he heard this, and then sleep washes over him in waves. He is asleep before Sherlock leaves the room. 

*** 

When he wakes, it’s dark and he is disoriented. He is lying facedown in an unfamiliar bed. He turns onto his back and remembers immediately: Sherlock’s bed, and his back still hurts, though it’s already a lot better than it was. He thinks of Sherlock, his brain slowly waking. Of Sherlock’s need to leave the house, not knowing why John was back or what he was supposed to make of it, and how suddenly his aloofness turned into concern when he realised that John wasn’t coping well. His gentleness in the loo as his fingers applied ointment as deftly as any nurse’s. _How did I not see it for what it was?_ John silently asks the ceiling. There are so many other things to consider – namely Mary and her reaction when she realises that John is not coming home – but right now one thing matters more than anything else. 

John gets out of Sherlock’s bed, goes to the back of the door and pulls Sherlock’s old plaid dressing gown on, ties it loosely, and opens the door. He can see instantly that it’s evening; it’s growing dark outside. Sherlock is sitting at the desk holding his violin, plucking it very softly like a mandolin and looking at the screen of his laptop. He looks up when John starts down the hall, his attention picking up, face turning toward him. He says John’s name and John goes over to him, his hands opening and closing. He’s got to say this.

“I came back because I love you and I’m an idiot for having turned this down the last time you offered it,” he says, meaning it with every fibre of his being. Even if Sherlock turns him down, he needs to say this, especially the apology. “I’ve no right to ask you for a second chance after what I – but even if I haven’t got myself entirely sorted yet, I just have to say this. I never should have left and I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry, Sher – ”

“Stop,” Sherlock says, setting the violin hastily down on the desk. He turns on the chair, looking up into John’s eyes. “You don’t need to say anything else.”

John searches his face, wanting desperately to believe it. “I do, though,” he says. “You asked if I only came back because I had nowhere else to go. It’s true that this would have been my top choice in any case, but – I thought it was too late. I thought I ruined my only chance and I never would have had the nerve to ask you again. I was trying to just – I don’t know, accept that I was going to have to stay with Mary and forget about all of that between you and me and just be grateful that you’re still here and not in Serbia. And I do love you. I underestimated you horribly and I’m so sorry. And I’m not asking you for another chance. I know I blew it the first time and probably hurt you terribly. I just had to tell you that I know how wrong I was and how much I’ve been wishing that I could go back to the day of that kiss and erase what happened after.”

“You don’t have to explain yourself,” Sherlock tells him, his eyes probing John’s, very serious. “I understand. I had hoped that was why you came back. I wasn’t sure. I’m – glad. I’m sorry about the circumstances that drove you back here, but it does make me feel – better, about all of that. I can guess what happened and why you thought what you thought. But you don’t any more?” 

“No,” John says. “Not since Christmas Day.”

Sherlock gets to his feet and looks intently down into his eyes. “Good,” he says. “Then I don’t care about the rest of it.” He puts his hands on John’s face, a look that John has never seen before coming over his features and it makes John feel as though his chest is going to explode. 

He puts his arms around Sherlock as Sherlock bends his face downward to kiss him. Rather than telling John that it’s much too late, that they had their window of opportunity and that it closed forever when John chose to leave him and go back to his wife, Sherlock is kissing him. John kisses back with so much relief he feels he could cry. Sherlock’s long fingers are sliding into his hair, and John hears himself make a desperate sort of sound and kisses Sherlock fiercely and it feels even better than it did the first time, now that no part of John is skittering away like a spooked horse. They kiss and kiss and kiss, Sherlock every bit as passionate as Mary swore he could never be (but John does _not_ want to think of Mary this time; she has no place in this moment or any other of their moments – never again, he vows silently). Sherlock is careful to avoid touching his back but wraps his arms around John’s shoulders, one large hand still tangled in the short hair at the back of John’s head as their tongues press together, both their chests heaving. It goes on for far longer than John’s estimated four minutes during the first one, and he never wants it to stop. 

He feels as though he is drowning in his relief. It’s unbelievable to think that Sherlock still wants this, is still willing to grant him this, even after how he behaved the first time. When they finally break apart, neither of them moves to be any further apart. Sherlock puts his forehead on John’s and leans against him. “I’m sorry,” John says, looking down at Sherlock’s feet. “The first time – I just – I was so convinced that you didn’t do that, didn’t let yourself indulge in ‘sentiment’. But I was wrong. I was so wrong.” He risks a look up at Sherlock’s face, detaching their foreheads. 

The corners of Sherlock’s mouth tug into a small smile. “What made you realise that?” he asks. 

“You shot Magnussen,” John says starkly. “You would have gone to Serbia and died there. All for me. Even after I’d rejected you. This. Us.” 

Sherlock blinks at him. “I thought you wanted your marriage back,” he says. His voice is low and soft. “I tried to give you that. I thought it was what you wanted.” 

John shakes his head. “I think this might be the first time in my life that I’ve ever known exactly what I wanted. I mean that. And I do want this. I want you. If I’d been honest with myself from the start, I might have got there a lot faster, but – I’m here now. If you’ll forgive me for having been such a colossal prick after we – ”

“John,” Sherlock interrupts gently. “Stop. Please. You’re suffering right now. I know you – I know you don’t want to see yourself as a victim, but the fact is that you’ve only just escaped from an emotionally and physically abusive relationship. You don’t need to be making apologies for anything just now. As far as I’m concerned, I understand and nothing more needs to be said about it, unless you really want to. But it’s unnecessary. This is all I wanted. Not your apologies. Not for you to be miserable about what happened before: just you.” 

John searches his eyes. “I don’t deserve you,” he says, meaning it. “I hope you know at least that I mean this, that I’m not just – trying this on because I wanted to move in again. I would never do that.” 

“Of course you wouldn’t,” Sherlock says, frowning. “I never would have thought that of you.” He puts his lips on John’s forehead, almost too soft to be considered a kiss, and it fills John’s gut with vertigo and heat. He reaches for Sherlock again, pulling his face down to find his mouth, and Sherlock locks his arms around his shoulders once more. 

John thinks of how they must look, pressed together and kissing hard, as though trying to make up for lost time. He thinks again of Serbia and how he came so terribly, terribly close to losing Sherlock again, permanently this time. It’s worth any risk. He would do anything to keep this, anything to protect it. Suddenly it occurs to him to wonder if that’s the way Mary feels about him. Thinking of her puts an immediate damper on his mood and after a moment he breaks the kiss off. 

Sherlock strokes his fingers roughly through John’s hair and touches his tongue to his lower lip, his eyes scanning over John’s face. “Are you – all right?” he asks. 

“Yeah,” John says. “Mostly. Sort of. I don’t know. This is the best thing that could have happened to me. Ever. The thing is, though…” He trails off, not wanting to ruin everything. 

Sherlock’s brow furrows. “What?” 

John clears his throat. “Mary said that she would kill you if I ever kissed, touched, or saw you again,” he says, the words coming out strained. “And – I haven’t exactly told her that I’ve left her. I just left. She thinks I went to work. I don’t know what time it is, but she’s bound to catch on soon, and when she does, I know this is the first place she’ll come. I’m sorry.”

Sherlock is still frowning. “Why should you be sorry? It’s not your fault.” 

“Well – ” John gestures between the two of them. “I mean, this is happening… I’m just worried. Have you got a bulletproof vest in your costumes or something? I really do think that you could be in serious danger once she realises.” 

“And you wouldn’t be?” Sherlock asks pointedly, his eyes not leaving John’s. “This is a woman who carved my initials into your back as lifelong punishment and semi-public humiliation for having kissed me once. Do you think that she honestly wouldn’t ‘punish’ you with further violence for having left her for me?” 

John cannot deny the inherent logic to this, though he’s somehow loath to do so. He nods, looking away and feeling miserable. The reference to the cuts has made him feel cold. “I don’t know why I let her do that to me,” he mutters. “Any of it.” 

“John.” Sherlock is sharp. “It wasn’t your fault. I imagine you were trying to smooth things over and that she took advantage of the fact. That’s not your fault. Don’t forget that blaming yourself is part of her design. That’s how this stuff works. It has nothing to do with being weak or the fact that you could have physically stopped her. That doesn’t come into it at all.” 

John’s throat is tight and he feels angry and humiliated all over again. “Since when are you such an expert?” he asks, the words sounding sullen and not particularly loving and he doesn’t want to be talking to Sherlock like this, but he’s got a raw nerve exposed here. 

“I did a lot of reading this afternoon,” Sherlock says, rather carefully. 

“About what?” John glances up at his face. 

“About spousal abuse. Female to male, specifically,” Sherlock says briefly. “If I wear a vest, then you’re wearing one, too. It’s as simple as that. I’m no more willing to risk your life or health than you are mine. Meanwhile, we both happen to know someone whose surveillance is more extensive than Ms Morstan’s could ever be. Shall I phone Mycroft?” 

“Please,” John says, with no small amount of relief both at the change of subject and at remembering that Mycroft Holmes can be extremely useful when he feels like it. 

Sherlock smiles as he dials, looking at the phone rather than at him, but he takes John’s hand and lifts the phone to his ear with his other hand. “Don’t go anywhere,” he says to John, then straightens up a little as Mycroft answers on the other end. “Brother mine,” he says, his customary drawl reserved for Mycroft not making an appearance for once. “Need a favour. It’s important.” He waits, then looks at John and says, “We need to know the precise details of Mary Morstan’s current location, activities – anything you’ve got.” He listens, then nods. “Yes. Thank you.” He disconnects. “Mycroft is on it,” he says unnecessarily. “He’s going to call back in a moment.”

“Okay,” John says. “Is my SIG here? Do you have it?” 

Sherlock smiles a bit. “I wondered if you would ask about that sometime. Yes. Don’t ask how much arguing it took, but Mycroft got it back. I left it on your dresser upstairs. I was going to tell you when you came to get the rest of your things.” 

John opens his mouth to say something about how much better it is that he brought himself back instead of coming to move his stuff out, but then Sherlock’s phone rings. “Get that,” he says, nodding at it. 

Sherlock glances at the screen and answers at once. “Mycroft.” He listens. A frown comes over his face and he glances at John, his shoulders going rigid. John feels ice form in the pit of his belly. (What does that mean?) Finally Sherlock speaks again. “All right. Thank you.” He hangs up. 

John is a bit shocked that Sherlock actually thanked Mycroft, twice now. “What did he say?” he asks, almost dreading the answer. 

Sherlock is still holding his hand. He looks down into John’s eyes, his face very intense. “Apparently Mary left the flat a little over an hour ago. Mycroft has her on surveillance, dressed in black with her hair concealed under a cap, the way she looked the night she shot me. She drove this way but had to pull over several times. It appears that she has gone into labour. She called herself an ambulance and was taken to the Royal London Hospital, where Mycroft now has agents monitoring her. She is still in labour.” 

He delivers all of this very evenly, but John can see the uncertainty lurking not very far behind his eyes. “Oh,” he says. Then, “So she _did_ try to come here.”

“So it would seem,” Sherlock says. “A good thing she didn’t make it, since you were still asleep an hour ago.” 

“What time is it?” John asks, feeling horribly guilty. He should have mentioned that first! What was he thinking? 

Sherlock looks at his phone. “Ten past nine. You slept all day. I’m glad. You needed it.” 

John feels dazed. “I should have said something earlier. I can’t believe I – ”

Sherlock shakes his head, frowning. “John,” he interrupts, mercifully cutting into John’s attempt to start babbling apologies again. “There are more important things to be thinking about, namely you. Are you all right?”

John does an inward check and feels blank. “I think so. I don’t even know what I’m supposed to feel about this,” he says, meaning Mary being in labour, with his child. “I don’t want to have anything to do with any of it. That’s how I actually feel.” 

Sherlock studies him. “Then don’t,” he says, shrugging. “I don’t blame you.” Then, while John is still wrestling with what to say to this, he changes the subject. “You must be hungry. Let’s order something.” 

John hesitates, biting his lip. “I should – I feel like I should do _something_ , but I really don’t want to,” he says frankly. He looks at Sherlock. “Fine. Let’s order in. You’re right: I’m starving. I just – I know you don’t want me to say it, but I just – I’m sorry for all of this.” He is beginning to realise that just because he and Sherlock are on the same page in terms of how they feel for each other now doesn’t mean that anything is resolved. 

Sherlock spares him having to talk about it by kissing him briefly on the forehead. “What do you feel like eating?” he asks, and goes on distracting John with tea and talking about nothing particularly important, and John is grateful. They eat at the kitchen table and by the time they’re finished, it’s nearly eleven. John surprises himself by yawning and Sherlock smiles. “Could you sleep a little more?” he asks. 

“I wouldn’t have thought so, but maybe I could,” John admits. He looks across at Sherlock. “Could I go on sleeping in your bed?” 

Sherlock nods. “Do you… want me to sleep upstairs?” he asks carefully. 

John smiles a bit and the heat in his belly stirs again. “No.”

Sherlock smiles back, looking a touch relieved. “All right, then.” 

*** 

They go to bed together, John lying on his side facing Sherlock. He is shirtless; it’s the easiest way to keep from aggravating the slashed and sliced skin of his back. The ache in his arse is fading, but he can still feel it when he moves in certain ways. Having Sherlock blinking at him from the next pillow, his strange, ethereal eyes bright and interested and one hundred percent focused on him is a pretty damned good distraction, though. 

“I’ve never done this before,” Sherlock tells him very frankly, the corner of his lip twisting a little. “I feel I should warn you. Anything that happens from this point forward will be… uncharted territory. Both physically and – otherwise. I don’t know what’s supposed to happen next, or what I’m doing if it comes to that point.”

“I’m not sure that I know a whole lot more,” John admits. He wants to move over and put his arms around Sherlock, but he feels irrationally uneasy. Mary is stuck in a hospital, he reminds himself inwardly. She won’t be coming for them tonight. Still: he can’t seem to make himself do it. 

Sherlock both looks and sounds unsure of himself. “Did you just – want to sleep?” he asks. “Or – ?” His hands are curled under his chin and part of John wants to take them, hold them, feel them relax and loosen. 

“Not necessarily,” he says. “What did you have in mind?” 

Sherlock’s lips press together in a clear sign of discomfort. “I don’t want to be the one deciding,” he says quietly. “I… suspect you’ve had enough of that for the time being.” 

John swallows and looks down at the sheets between them. It’s as though Sherlock knows about his entire history of semi-reluctant, semi-consensual relations with Mary. He can’t find the right thing to say. 

“I’m sorry,” Sherlock says into the silence. He sounds awkward. “I didn’t mean to – I shouldn’t have said that. I’m… presuming too much.” 

“You’re really not,” John says, his voice coming out dry. He makes himself reach out then, trying to get out of the negative spiral in his head and remind himself that he’s exactly where he wanted to be at last, in bed with Sherlock, the person he loves more than anything else in life. He puts his hand on both of Sherlock’s. “I want to kiss you.” 

Sherlock looks self-conscious. “Are you sure?” he asks. “We don’t have to do anything at all. Even that. We don’t have to kiss. We could just – go to sleep.” 

John has to smile at this, and suddenly everything feels okay. “After how long we’ve already waited? I don’t think so.” He leans over then and Sherlock meets him partway, their mouths coming together again. Inside John’s head, Mary is watching and saying derisive things about his latent attraction to Sherlock and the need to cure him of it. (Shut _up_ , John thinks angrily.) He puts a hand on Sherlock’s side, covered in a thin, very well-worn t-shirt, feeling the heat of Sherlock’s skin through the cotton. The kiss is very good and he focuses on losing himself in it. He has no idea how Sherlock is this good at kissing, based on those half-hearted things he witnessed between him and Janine, though even half-hearted was more than enough to make him feel nauseated with jealousy. Maybe it’s just that Sherlock has thought about this for so long. Maybe they both have. John gets his arm around Sherlock’s back, pulling him closer, and Sherlock lets him, going completely pliant in his arms. They kiss and kiss and John feels himself hardening and could almost cry, so happy is he to find that he can still get it up in a situation that he’s fully into, not just ones where his body betrays him by reacting to something the rest of him doesn’t even want. At least Mary hasn’t ruined erections for him. He shifts closer still and feels Sherlock’s against his thigh and knowing that Sherlock is hard sends a wave of heat prickling through his body. 

“John – ” Sherlock gasps in a whisper against his lips. “I – ”

“I know,” John tells him, opening his eyes to look at Sherlock, whose eyes are tightly closed as though in pain. “I know – it’s all right.” 

“It’s not too – ” Sherlock stops, not telling John what it is that he’s afraid his erection might be _too_. 

“It’s incredibly arousing,” John tells him frankly. He brings his hand around between them, sliding it under the loose waistband of Sherlock’s pyjama pants. “May I?” he asks, his own cock giving a throb of desire. 

Sherlock nods once, just a jerk of his chin. He opens his eyes and looks down to see John’s hand disappearing into his pants and his breathing turns ragged, a groan pushing itself out when John’s fist closes around his cock. 

John looks down at it, too, marvelling at what a genuinely lovely cock Sherlock has. It’s somehow bigger than he expected, though he’s not sure he could have said what he was expecting, exactly. It feels like it was made for his hand and his alone. He rubs his palm over it, making note of every single thing that’s different about it, memorising the way it feels against his skin, and is rewarded by Sherlock's warm, shaking exhalations against his forehead. “Do you – like this?” he asks, wanting to be sure. 

Sherlock’s answer is a long, hummed resonance from the bass register, his head tilted back, and in both relief at the reassurance and arousal of his own, John turns his face up to press fervent kisses to that long, pale throat, and Sherlock clutches at his head. John thinks that Sherlock doesn’t need to tell him explicitly that no one has ever touched his cock before. The idea makes him salivate, his own cock hardening even further. Perhaps Sherlock senses it or guesses or something, because, distracted as he is, he puts a hand on John’s hip then. “I want to – ”

“Yes,” John pants, already leaking at the very suggestion. “Please.” Sherlock doesn’t waste any time, rubbing his large hand over the front of John’s underwear, seemingly memorising the shape of it coiled in there before lifting the elastic waistband over it. Having freed it, he grasps it and begins a long, twisting stroke that immediately reduces John to a state not far off from whimpering. It’s as though Sherlock somehow knows exactly how to touch him, how hard, how fast, exactly which little wrist movements will have him biting his lip and pushing unwittingly into the heat of Sherlock’s fist. And that’s with Sherlock breathing hard and doing the same, his hips unconsciously pumping forward into John’s fingers, one long leg hooking around John’s thigh. First times are supposed to be awkward and short-lived, John thinks vaguely. This might be on the shorter side, but only because they’ve both been denied this so long and need it so badly. It’s nothing at all fancy – just a mutual wank, really, and yet their bodies could have been tailored to match each other’s. It’s absolutely phenomenal, John thinks, his brain hazy with arousal as he strokes Sherlock off and thrusts himself into Sherlock’s hand. He’s never touched a cock that wasn’t his own, but it feels better than he’d ever thought it could. If he’d ever even suspected that it would be this good, or that Sherlock would want it as badly as he did, he never could have married Mary. No matter what she said, how she managed to twist and manipulate his thoughts. The ultimate fault lies with him for having underestimated Sherlock in the first place.

Another spasm of pleasure runs through his body, distracting him from this line of thought. He gets even closer to Sherlock, feeling as though he can’t possibly get close enough. His legs tangle with Sherlock’s and Sherlock allows himself to be pushed onto his back, John climbing onto him. His cock is touching Sherlock’s, stiff and hard and wanting, and feeling Sherlock’s touch it makes him shiver violently. Sherlock puts his hands both on John’s arse and grips it and John groans so loudly that the neighbours might hear it and starts thrusting against Sherlock cock. It’s lying flat up against Sherlock’s flat belly and oozing. He’s humping Sherlock like a teenager, their cocks sliding and rubbing together and right now it’s the best thing John has ever felt, particularly with Sherlock’s fingers gripping his arse like that. Beneath him, Sherlock is gasping, his mouth open as he pants, his body writhing up against John’s. Suddenly he grasps both of their cocks at once and rubs frantically, a sharp sound bursting from his throat. His stomach hollows out and clenches and then his cock spurts several heavy shots of come across his belly and chest and John is so turned on that his body has no choice but to do the same thing, erupting in ribbons of sticky white that mix with Sherlock’s release as he groans from somewhere deep in his pelvis, pleasure gripping him on every side. 

He bends forward to pant against Sherlock’s shoulder for several minutes and Sherlock leaves one hand where it is on his arse and puts the other in John’s hair. He’s also breathing hard, his heart thudding in his chest against John’s, and John marvels that even now he’s remembered that he can’t touch John’s back. The thought comes with a twinge of sorrow, that any part of him is off limits for Sherlock. Mary did that, spoiled certain things in advance. (Never mind, he tells himself. No Mary. Not now. Not in this precious moment.) “I love you,” he says, his head on Sherlock’s shoulder. “I mean that. I’m sorry it took me so long to get here.” 

Sherlock’s hands both squeeze. “Please stop saying it. I love you, too. That’s – enough. Much more than enough.”

“I need to,” John says quietly, his heart still racing. “I understand that you want us to just move past that, but for me… I’m still processing it all, I guess.”

There’s a moment, then Sherlock only says, “Understood.” He shifts and John lifts his face and looks down at him, sees the silent request in Sherlock’s eyes and kisses him again. The kiss grows and stretches out and makes John feel whole in ways he’d never thought to experience in his life. 

*** 

When John wakes, Sherlock is still there, lying facing him, both of them on their sides. His eyes are open already, watching John’s face. He smiles. “Hello.”

John feels his face smiling back before he can help himself. “Hi,” he says, feeling a bit silly, and Sherlock shifts over in an obvious hint. John takes it, leaning in and kissing him. He meant to do a brief, good-morning kiss, but when he breaks it off, Sherlock doesn’t move away, his eyes opening and finding John’s, then putting a hand on John’s face and kissing him again. _Okay, then,_ John thinks, and goes with it, putting his arm around Sherlock’s back and throwing himself into it. For a moment he wonders why Sherlock won’t put his arms around him, limiting himself to resting a hand on John’s side, but then he remembers the state of his back. Sherlock makes up for it, though, sliding his palm lower to grip at one of John’s arse cheeks. He feels a twinge of discomfort from what Mary did to him the other night, but it’s minimal enough that he can almost ignore it, choose instead to focus on the length of Sherlock’s body pressing up against him, their morning erections knocking into each other’s. He spends a moment marvelling at Sherlock’s neediness, his obvious desire for this. (How did I never see it?) he asks himself yet again. He was so blind. He gets himself even closer to Sherlock, kissing him harder yet and reaching for his cock. 

Sherlock makes a sound in his throat at that and exhales onto John’s chin, his hand finding John’s cock in turn and they go on kissing and rubbing each other and it’s _good_. It’s so bloody good. They’re panting between kisses and pushing into each other’s hands and John is revelling in the feeling of having Sherlock’s cock in his hand like this, so intimate and trusting and just seeing him this way is something he feels terribly privileged in being allowed to witness. Sherlock breaks off the kiss, moaning, and John rubs harder, getting a leg over Sherlock’s to anchor themselves together. He’s groaning himself, Sherlock’s hand pulling and tugging at him just exactly hard enough and John can feel himself leaking into it. Sherlock suddenly exhales hard, vocally, then comes all over John’s stomach and chest, and the feeling of it, combined with the look on Sherlock’s face as he comes, is more than John can stand. His hips jam forward and even in the throes of his orgasm Sherlock manages to give him a hard squeeze and John throws back his head and spatters his release all over Sherlock in turn. It comes again, rushing hotly up from his balls and landing audibly on Sherlock’s skin, and his breath floods out onto Sherlock’s neck and jaw. 

Their legs are still moving, rubbing against each other’s, and John thinks that this is the very best morning after he’s ever had. He’s never been with someone he wanted this much, this badly, cared for this deeply. He’s never loved anyone else like this before. Never to this extent. He opens his eyes and sees Sherlock’s face, his eyes still shut, brow creased, lips parted as he breathes through his mouth, his pulse fluttering in his long neck. He feels John’s gaze and his mercurial eyes open and for a long moment, they just look at each other. John doesn’t even know which of them kisses the other first this time. It doesn’t matter: it’s exactly what they both wanted, needed. Since he can’t touch John’s back, Sherlock puts his long-fingered hand on John’s face and cradles it as they kiss, making John feel somehow more treasured than he’s ever felt before. Sherlock _loves_ him. He knows this down to his bones now. There is no more doubt. And he will never let Mary into his head again. Or – if this is to be a process, to work her out and keep her out. John vows this silently as they kiss, feeling more than he’s ever felt before and nearly suffocating in it. 

Hours later, or so it feels, they get themselves sorted again, propping their heads up on elbows to smile at each other. “Hang on,” Sherlock says. “Don’t move.” Before John can protest, Sherlock is off the bed and disappearing into the loo. 

“Where are you going?” he asks, but Sherlock reappears immediately, a flannel in one hand and something else in the other. 

He brandishes the flannel. “Thought we might like to clean up a bit,” he says. “To be rather frank, I was already rather sticky from last night already, and now I’m even more so.” 

John grins, feeling more like himself for the first time in ages. “That will happen,” he agrees. “Give that here.” 

Sherlock _tsks_ at him. “Never.” He gets back onto the bed, arranging his long, nude limbs with his typical grace, and begins to clean John’s chest diligently. John watches him from beneath his eyelashes and feels his heart swelling out practically past the bounds of his rib cage. Sherlock wipes carefully down his stomach and more gently still, cleans John’s cock and balls and thighs without the slightest hint of embarrassment. “There you are,” he says, his voice low and mellow and intimate. 

John takes the flannel from him and Sherlock permits it. “Thank you,” he says, meaning it. He cleans Sherlock the same way, still cautious near the healed bullet wound. He thinks wistfully that he hasn’t seen it in so long, since the day he’d proclaimed it more or less healed. It looks much better now. He was given the right to see it every day at any time, he realises now. Sherlock gave him that right, and he turned it down. (What a fool he was.) He cleans Sherlock’s skin with his heart in his throat, rubbing gently between his legs, and as he tugs the cloth over Sherlock’s cock, he’s surprised to feel it hardening again. “Goodness,” he comments. “I didn’t realise you could get it up again so fast.” He’s being a bit facetious, he knows, but it’s only because this is all so emotional already. 

Sherlock looks down at it, looking self-consciously. “Neither did I, to be quite honest,” he admits. He looks up at John. “It’s you. Your effect on me. I mean – I’ve never, with anyone else, so perhaps I shouldn’t make a scientific claim on that front, but I’m fairly certain – ”

John throws the flannel in the general direction of the loo and pulls Sherlock back into his arms without a word, rolling onto him and kissing him, sliding against him and using his thigh to rub against Sherlock’s stiffening cock, loving the way it makes Sherlock moan and clutch at his shoulders. When it starts leaving wet smears on John’s leg, Sherlock’s breath chokes out of his throat and he moves his hands to John’s arse again. John hears himself react quite vocally, his cock rubbing directly against Sherlock’s now, and it’s absolute bliss. He can feel every little pulse and twitch and reaction of Sherlock’s cock against his own and loves it, loves it even more than he ever suspected he could love having sex with another man. He thinks again that if he’d known it could be even a fraction as good as it is, he never could have made himself settle for life with Mary even at its best, not knowing that Sherlock wanted this. And he did – he must have. John knows this now. 

Sherlock’s body spasms as he comes again, mostly on himself, though there’s less of it this time, and witnessing it makes John shudder. Panting, Sherlock wraps his fist around John and jerks him until he comes again and it’s bloody terrific, he thinks blurrily as his release winks out in pearly drops between Sherlock’s knuckles. Sherlock lets go of his cock and gets his arm around John’s shoulder from behind it, avoiding the cuts but still managing to hold John to himself. John is breathing hard, his breath rasping in his throat, and Sherlock puts his mouth on his throat and kisses him there, his tongue pressing into John’s pulse point, his knee pushing between John’s and John feels more loved than he has in all his life. It’s dizzying and completely wonderful. 

They pull themselves together a second time, not saying a lot but letting themselves unwind, still in each other’s arms. Sherlock wiped his hand on the sheets at some point and is now stroking his hair with slightly sticky fingers and John doesn’t care. The sheer amount of tenderness on Sherlock’s face is nothing less than amazing to behold and he doesn’t intend to miss a single second of it. 

“This is the best I’ve ever felt in my life,” he tells Sherlock, meaning it from the bottom of his heart. 

Sherlock turns to look down at him, an arm cradling John’s shoulders. “Really?” he asks. “Even with – ” He stops short of saying Mary’s name or making any particular reference to what happened the other night. 

“Even with that,” John says, looking into Sherlock’s eyes, wanting him to believe it. “Part of me always wanted this, you know. Right from the start.”

For a moment Sherlock doesn’t say anything, obviously processing, but his arm tightens, his thumb stroking over John’s cheekbone. “I can’t even say when it started,” he says, honest. “Obviously some part of it was rather instant. But the realisation was a gradual process, perhaps.”

“Did you know before you jumped?” John asks, the question very plain, but he wants to know. 

Sherlock puts his lips in John’s hair, doing another of those kisses so light they just barely qualify as kisses. “Yes.” 

“And you still went and did all of that without me,” John says, marvelling anew. “Without me, and for me.” 

“Yes.” Sherlock’s voice is mellow, soft at the edges. 

“And then you came back, and I was with Mary,” John says softly. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” 

Sherlock makes a sound of negation and John stops himself. “I knew you probably wouldn’t have waited. I mean. Not that there was anything between us to wait for, I suppose.” 

John puts his own hand on Sherlock’s face, the face he loves so very, very much. “But you never suspected, about me? That what I really wanted was you?” 

Sherlock blinks at him, then opens his mouth, contemplating for a moment, then says, “There is a difference between what a person is attracted to and what that means he wants. I’m aware of that. I was always trying to respect it. There were certainly times when I thought there could have been something more between us, but as you knew that I habitually didn’t engage in that sort of thing, and as I knew that you preferred to date women only, there never seemed to be much point in ‘confronting’ you about what I suspected were latent strains of bisexuality, particularly when I would have considered myself the primary target of them. Even I know how rude that is. In the end, the choice was yours, and as you consistently didn’t take it, I assumed that it wasn’t… something that you did want.” 

“But I never knew that you wanted it, either,” John protests. “You just said it yourself: you never did that sort of thing. You told me that at our first dinner together, that you consider yourself married to your work.” 

“While inviting you to join my work,” Sherlock says, the corner of his mouth quirking. “But yes: I meant it then. We had only just met. I had no idea then what your influence on my life would be, no idea how important you would become to me. We had that conversation too early. That occurred to me once, when I was away. So I decided to be very careful and wait. When I came back and Mary was there, I just… tried to stop wanting it. I had never thought that I was as important to you as you were to me and I wasn’t all that surprised that you’d met someone else. I tried not to think about it and just be glad to have your friendship in my life again.” 

John’s heart is aching. “And then my wife shot you,” he says bitterly. “And I came home from the hospital with you and let you think that I was going to stay.” 

“You never told me that,” Sherlock says quickly, looking troubled. “I – extrapolated based on the pattern I saw, but you never promised to stay.” 

“I wanted to,” John tells him frankly, stroking his face with his thumb. “I kept telling myself not to flirt with you, not to let it happen, but it felt so – inevitable. And I wanted it. That kiss – that was the best kiss of my life. I just – I’m so sorry for what happened after.” 

Sherlock shakes his head a little, his eyes somewhere else. “I understand why, now. I had just thought that… I had thought it might finally be all right to let you see the scars. Tell you the whole story. I thought you understood at last, that night. That I loved you. How much. What I wouldn’t have done for you if necessary. Your life was in danger and there was literally nothing that I wouldn’t have done.”

“As you proved on Christmas Day,” John says quietly. “I know, Sherlock. I know now. And – I _did_ get it. I honestly did. I was blown away by it.” 

“I thought the way forward would be fairly clear once you had seen the scars,” Sherlock says, his brow creased. “I thought you would know how I felt beyond any doubt. I – was surprised. When you – stopped.” 

John closes his eyes and hates himself. “I’m sorry,” he says, feeling wretched. “I just – I couldn’t get my head around whether or not love was something you even did. It _seemed_ like it, but I had always thought that you didn’t do that, and Mary used to reinforce that idea, and after all that, you got so cold and distant, almost like I was a stranger. I even called Molly to ask how you’d been the next day, and she said you seemed absolutely fine, so then I didn’t know what to think at all.”

Sherlock’s lips tighten. “It was the only thing I knew to do,” he says. “I wanted us to go on being friends. But I was – shocked and angry and – terribly hurt, I suppose. I think you know that. It doesn’t matter now,” he says, turning his eyes back to John’s. “It’s fine now. Considerably better than fine.” 

John’s throat is tight and pained. “I know I didn’t deserve a second chance,” he says, meaning it. “But – God, am I glad – just so fucking glad that you love me enough to have given me one anyway!” 

Sherlock pulls him closer and kisses him, not even bothering with words. They kiss and kiss and kiss and John’s eyes are wet and Sherlock can’t touch his back so he’s gripping John’s face instead and it’s fervent and hungry on both sides. Several long, wonderful minutes later, Sherlock turns his face into John’s neck and says, “I just needed you to know that I did. Love you that much, I mean. I thought you thought I couldn’t.” 

“I did think that,” John says, still feeling guilty over it. “Even after everything you had done, I still doubted it. Until you shot Magnussen for me.”

Sherlock is kissing his jaw, using his lips and tongue both. “I would have shot him just for laying a finger on you.” 

John laughs. Sherlock makes an amused sound in his throat, deep and warm, and John pulls him even closer. “I believe you.” 

Sherlock lifts his face, his features intense and serious. “Which does beg the question of what we’re going to do about your wife.” 

John goes tense without meaning to. “Do we have to talk about that now?” he asks, his throat going tight. 

Sherlock opens his mouth, looking apologetic. “I’m sorry, I just thought – ”

“I just don’t want her part of this in any way,” John says, his voice harsher than he meant it to sound. “This is the best morning after of my life. This is us finally getting to be together after having screwed that up for so many years. I only want it to be about you and me. That’s all.” 

Sherlock studies him for a long moment, then nods. “Yes. Of course.” 

“You don’t – ”

“Of course I don’t mind.” Sherlock puts his mouth on John’s again, reassuring him with his mouth and hands that he really, really does mean it. He digs under the pillow and brings out the polysporin, which John never saw him bring to bed. “May I?” he asks. “We should do it again. Unless you’d rather shower first.” 

“Shower first,” John says. “But I’m not showering without you.” 

Sherlock’s eyes gleam. “Perish the thought.” 

*


	5. Chapter 5

**Part V**

 

John’s first twenty-four hours back at Baker Street are rather wonderful. After Sherlock’s first questions in the loo, and his attempt to ask John what they should do about Mary, he left the subject well alone and focused his attentions on John himself. He makes no reference to the cuts on John’s back, just diligently avoids them. John marvels inwardly at the balance Sherlock seems to have found in taking as much care of him as possible without crossing the line into fussing territory, not hovering or smothering or treating John as though he’s made of glass, but sitting back and letting John take the lead wherever possible. John is aware of him doing it, but while it’s probably as deliberate as Mary’s manipulations, Sherlock’s attentions are thoughtful, designed specifically to let him have exactly what he needs and wants. And it really is amazing, John thinks to himself: Sherlock knows him so well and is gauging things with remarkable intuition for someone who used to proclaim himself a sociopath at fairly regular intervals. 

Sherlock touches him as much as he seems to think he’s allowed to, and John responds to it by clumsily trying to encourage it, touch back just as much. He wants to. There is still some internal resistance to it that he has to push past, but it’s already beginning to fade. He can feel the residue of Mary inside his head like a toxic inner monologue, but he hasn’t let it dictate anything that he does or doesn’t do so far. And why should it, he asks himself, when being with Sherlock like this at last is hundreds of times better than he’d ever let himself dare to imagine? Sherlock once accused him of being a romantic, yet it’s Sherlock who thinks of things like offering John bites of his food by feeding them to him with his fingers or going up onto the roof to watch the moon rise that first night, Sherlock who says that he wants to feel John’s arms around him as they sleep, fitting his lanky form up against John’s body in an improbable little spoon that somehow works perfectly. John goes to sleep with an aureole of Sherlock’s curls tickling his forehead and lets himself hug Sherlock to himself almost without shame in doing so. Sherlock’s fingers tangle with his on his chest and John squeezes his eyes shut and tries not to drown in what he feels for him. 

The only thing he keeps to himself is the other injury Mary did to him. The very concept of it still fills him with humiliation and horror both. Facing the fact that he somehow allowed this to happen to him is something he cannot quite seem to face. He wakes in the night that first night and slips into the loo to check on it, cleaning himself and checking for blood, applying more polysporin to guard against infection. He thinks it’s healing all right, but the enormity of his private shame over the entire incident is too much for him to swallow; he cannot even make eye contact with himself in the mirror over it. He puts the polysporin back where Sherlock left it after their shower earlier, flushes the toilet (which he didn’t use), and washes his hands. He crawls back into bed with Sherlock, who sleepily asks where he went. 

“Loo,” John tells him, getting his arm around Sherlock again and kissing his bare shoulder. “I’m here now. Don’t worry.” 

“Don’t go,” Sherlock says drowsily, reminding John of every time he said it when he was in the hospital. 

“I won’t,” John vows, kissing his shoulder again, then again. “I promise. Never again. I’ll never leave you.” 

Sherlock’s fingers squeeze around his. “I’ll never leave you,” he murmurs in return, his words sluggish with sleep. 

In the morning he wakes with Sherlock’s arms around him and it doesn’t even hurt that much. The jagged cuts on his back have dried and scabbed over, and he’s glad to find himself in the circle of Sherlock’s long, lithe arms. It’s as much a surprise to Sherlock as it is to him when they wake that way, and John loves the way his low laugh resonates through the length of his throat. “Good morning,” Sherlock says, sounding particularly satisfied, and sets out immediately to make it one, John going from yawning to panting in his arms within minutes. Perhaps it’s very tame, just touching each other this way under the blankets, but it feels better than anything John has felt before and he doesn’t care. As long as it’s with Sherlock. 

After, they get up and shower and John marvels again at how silly Sherlock can be with his defences stripped away for once, showing the side of himself that had been more and more at the fore after they came back from the hospital, only even more so. The look Sherlock gets on his face sometimes as he looks at him makes John’s heart clench in his chest – it’s so open and unfiltered, naked and vulnerable and beautiful, and John loves him more than he knew he had the ability to love. It feels as though it’s welling up from depths he didn’t know existed and flooding out of him in embarrassing waves, and Sherlock’s ability to absorb all of it and not be bothered by its profusion has not yet been exceeded, nor has the reverse occurred. Sherlock is obviously new at finding ways to express what he feels, experimentally trying new channels and methods and watching John’s reactions with as much interest as he would with any other experiment, only the level of vulnerability and not-quite-concealed caution tells John that it’s a whole lot more than scientific interest that he’s seeing when Sherlock will stoop to kiss his cheek while passing him in the kitchen, a fleeting look skating over John’s face to register his reaction to it after. It’s tender and a little clumsy and absolutely perfect and John is practically overwhelmed by it. 

Sherlock makes breakfast, allowing him to make the tea and genially refusing any other assistance. John sets the table anyway and Sherlock doesn’t scold him over it, but comes over and kisses him for a long moment, a pan of something sizzling forgotten in one hand. Mushrooms, as it turns out, and they smell divine. Sherlock serves them with scrambled eggs oozing with sharp cheddar and spring onions and John pours them both mugs of tea and lets Sherlock’s feet and ankles rub against his under the table. His gut is welling with contentedness that he’d honestly thought he’d never feel again, so happy that it frankly scares him. 

The sensation evaporates when a set of measured footsteps starts up the stairs to the flat. Sherlock gives him a look of combined exasperation and slight worry, looking at him over the newspaper he’s holding. 

John puts his down as Mycroft steps into the kitchen, his innards shrinking back into anxiety. “Mycroft,” he says, and his lips feel numb. “What is it?” 

Mycroft’s face looks grave. He goes to the chair at the end of the table and looks down at John, his expression unusually unreadable. “I’m afraid I have some – distressing news,” he says, and for once in his life he doesn’t sound horribly smug. 

“What is it?” John repeats, his heart beginning to race. Sherlock’s foot presses into his in silent support under the table. 

Mycroft looks down rather than at him. “I’m afraid that there were… complications in the birth of your child,” he says, very quietly. “She – the baby – didn’t live. I’m very sorry.” 

John feels blank. “And – Mary?” he asks. 

“Still in recovery, under observation,” Mycroft tells him. He turns his head sideways a little. “She has not asked about your whereabouts, as far as anyone has heard,” he says carefully. “Have you been in contact with her at all?” 

“No.” The word comes out instinctively. “And I’m not going to. I don’t want to see her.” 

Sherlock speaks for the first time. “I want her kept away from here,” he says to his brother, his voice low and serious. “See to it, would you?” 

The brothers share a long stare, silently communicating – John doesn’t know what, but after a moment, Mycroft nods. “Understood,” he says. He gives John a last look that John is unable to interpret, then turns and leaves. It’s the first interaction John has ever had or seen Sherlock have with Mycroft that has involved absolutely no facetiousness or sneering from any party present. 

Sherlock leans across the table. “Are you all right?” he asks, his voice still low. 

John can’t quite seem to get in enough breath. “I – don’t know,” he says jerkily, and Sherlock gets up and comes around the table, putting his arms around John and pulling him up into his chest. He doesn’t say anything, just holds John, and it’s the only thing John could have wanted. He doesn’t have the vocabulary to talk about feelings he can’t even identify yet, and being able to hide his face is good. Very good. “I feel like I killed the baby,” he says, the words saying themselves directly from his gut, bypassing all filters. 

Sherlock’s fingers still in his hair. “How would that even be possible?” he asks, keeping his voice unimaginably gentle. 

“I didn’t want her.” The words are horribly true and John feels a wave of self-loathing prickle down his scabbed back. “And Mary knew I had left her and went into labour with that in her mind. It could have contributed to there being trauma during the birth. I just – I – ”

Sherlock waits, and when it seems clear that John isn’t going to finish, he takes him by the shoulders and pulls back just enough to look into his eyes. Sherlock’s are very blue and very sober. “John,” he says, as gently as before, “listen to me. This is still Mary’s voice. Mary’s narrative. It’s the guilt Mary wants you to feel. It wasn’t your fault. If Mary was upset over you having left, this is not something you could have prevented. It wasn’t you who did what she did to your back, making you decide to leave her. That was her own choice. These are the consequences of _her_ actions, not yours. I know it must be… difficult to separate your own thoughts from the structures she built into your head while you were grieving and vulnerable, but trust me: this is not something that you need to feel guilty about. It wasn’t your fault. You’re a doctor; you know very well that many factors can affect a birth. Problems happen. How you felt about having a child with Mary played no part in this.” 

John leans forward and puts his forehead on Sherlock’s shoulder, clutching at his back. His eyes are burning but dry. Sherlock’s words have loosened the grip of miserable guilt, and John recognises the truth of what he’s said with relief. His throat is tight. “Okay,” he says. Then again, a moment later, “Okay.” 

*** 

Later that afternoon, John comes out of the kitchen with a fresh pot of tea and puts it down on the coffee table. “Can I ask you something?” he asks abruptly. 

Sherlock opens his eyes from where he’s lounging on the sofa and pulls himself upright. “Of course,” he says, reaching for the tea and patting the cushions next to him. 

John doesn’t move. Not yet. “You asked me yesterday morning what we should do about Mary, or something along those lines,” he says, feeling the lines around his mouth deepening. 

Sherlock’s hand doesn’t move as he pours the tea, but a certain set comes to his mouth. “Yes.” 

John watches him. “What do you want to do?” 

Sherlock’s brows lift. “If it were up to me?” He fills John’s cup and then his own, then sets down the teapot and meets John’s eyes, his gaze direct and unblinking. “If it were up to me, I would kill her.”

John feels slightly startled by this. “You would?” He thinks of when Sherlock originally told him that Mary had saved his life, the well-constructed congeniality with which he treated Mary. He’d known then that it was false, or he’d figured it out eventually, rather, but still. Somehow he wasn’t expecting this level of intensity. 

Sherlock’s gaze hasn’t wavered. “Yes,” he says coolly. “Not for what she did to me. For what she did to you.” 

John thinks of his back, then thinks of the other part and feels uneasy. He stands there, his fists opening and closing, not sure what to do with this information. 

Whatever Sherlock is thinking, he doesn’t explain. “Come here,” he says, but it’s an invitation rather than an instruction. John goes and sits down then and Sherlock puts an arm around his shoulders. “But it’s not up to me,” he tells him, looking intently into John’s eyes. “It’s entirely up to you. You asked, so I answered you. I told you that I would have shot Magnussen just for flicking you in the face. I don’t know the full extent of what Mary has done, but I’ve seen your back. I know that she got herself into your head, and she’s hurt you. She met you when you were vulnerable, insinuated herself into your very thought processes, and used everything she knew about you to hurt you, make you paranoid, make you feel always at fault. I want to rip her from limb to limb for having laid a finger on you. For all of it. But it’s not my decision to make.” 

John shudders. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to want.”

Sherlock makes a hummed sound of understanding. “You’re afraid of her.” There is no accusation in his tone, just simple statement. 

John hesitates, cringing inwardly. “It’s so humiliating. She’s my _wife_. Or was, at least…”

“It’s nothing to be humiliated about,” Sherlock tells him, putting his lips on John’s forehead. “She’s a professional killer. I’m afraid of her, too.”

This surprises John, too. “Are you?” he asks. 

“Yes.” Sherlock doesn’t flinch from it. “I’m afraid of what more she could do. She’s already tried to kill me once and done much worse to you. I’m afraid of her retaliation, particularly now that she’s lost the baby.”

John leans into him. “But Mycroft is watching,” he says. “And you and I are pretty good at defending ourselves.”

“From the usual run-of-the-mill criminals,” Sherlock points out. “But yes: we have each other. Until this is all resolved, I would rather neither of us went anywhere without the other. If you don’t mind.” 

“Agreed,” John says at once. “I’m not letting you out of my sight.” 

“Nor you out of mine,” Sherlock says, and smiles at him. “Which would have been my preference in any case just now.” 

John smiles back, part of him wondering how he can smile with all of this going on, but the rest of him doesn’t even care. “If we start snogging again, the tea will get cold,” he says. 

“Is that a deliberate invitation?” Sherlock asks, his voice dropping an octave and going straight to John’s balls. He noses at John’s nose, his very presence swirling around John’s head like a cloud of vertigo. 

“Could be,” he says, his pulse spiking, eyebrows lifting. “If you want it to be…”

Sherlock kisses him once, hard, his mouth sucking at John’s lips. “Bugger the tea,” he says, his voice even lower, and John reclaims Sherlock’s mouth and puts his arms around him, bending him down to the sofa cushions, and the tea is duly forgotten. 

*** 

That night, they undress each other, kissing all the while, and Sherlock tells him in that same, smoky tone that he’s rapidly deduced can get John harder than a pikestaff in seconds, that he wants to try it with his mouth. 

John has to swallow so that the rush of saliva that floods his mouth won’t make him drool. “Oh, God, yes!” His heartfelt agreement makes Sherlock laugh that low, incredibly sensual laugh of his, and the shedding of their respective clothing gets rather accelerated. They both get into bed from Sherlock’s side, John on top of him, their cocks already bumping and sliding together, Sherlock’s hands on his arse. There’s a twinge of discomfort but John decides to ignore it in favour of concentrating on this much more interesting prospect. Sherlock gently turns them over. “Are you all right like this?” he asks, meaning John’s back, and when John assures him breathlessly that he is, he makes a sound not unlike purred satisfaction and begins to kiss John’s chest, though still careful not to put weight on John anywhere above the waist. 

John lets his head fall back, revelling in the sensation of Sherlock’s lips and tongue and breath on his skin, his cock stiffening at that mouth on his nipples especially. He pushes himself up on one elbow to watch, burying his fingers in Sherlock’s curls with his free hand, unable to just receive without doing anything in return. Sherlock inches lower, kissing as he goes, another of those low laughs resonating in his throat when John’s cock bumps wetly into his throat. Sherlock looks up at him for a long moment, then takes John’s cock with his hand and slowly slides his mouth over the head of it. John hears the sound that comes tearing from his throat and nearly dies on the spot from the intensity of the pleasure. Just seeing Sherlock’s beautiful mouth on his body does so much for him that he can barely breathe, and then there’s how it feels: Sherlock’s tongue is cupping the underside of his cock like a velvet blanket, only it’s very warm and very wet as it slides over the length of him, his lips forming the perfect heart they make when he exclaims one of his surprised _Oh!_ ’s.

John is groaning uncontrollably, his fingers clenched in Sherlock’s hair and the sheets both. He can’t think of any blow job that’s ever been even half this good and it’s only just started. Sherlock picks up speed after a few trips up and down him, his nose pressing into John’s skin, his throat opening to allow John access into its heat, and John is completely inarticulate. Now he’s going faster, his tongue doing absolutely wicked things that John can’t even explain and he can’t seem to restrain himself at all. His reactions seem to be turning Sherlock on just as much, too – Sherlock has shifted so that he’s astride one of John’s legs and is rubbing himself against John’s calf with equal lack of control. His cock is wet and the heavy swing of his balls is filling John’s mouth with saliva almost as much as Sherlock’s mouth on him is. There is nothing restrained about what Sherlock is doing, his mouth plunging down over his cock, stopping to kiss the head of it almost obscenely and John can hear his voice getting higher and more desperate-sounding, unable to say any specific words, but Sherlock finally reaches up to push down against John’s hand in his hair, specifically indicating that John should just hold him in place and thrust up into his mouth. He finds that with an invitation that explicit, he’s incapable of doing anything else, so he does it, thrusting without restraint into the ring of those lips, Sherlock’s hand returning to pump at the base of it, and as John begins to come he feels Sherlock’s body jerk, the knuckles of his other hand brushing against John’s leg as he jerks himself off. John’s cock gushes hotly into Sherlock’s mouth and even as he feels Sherlock’s throat swallowing it down, there is a hot splatter of liquid on his inner thigh from Sherlock and he feels Sherlock’s voice resonating into his flesh as his orgasm overtakes him. 

Sherlock waits until John’s cock has stopped flooding his mouth before releasing him and turning his head sideways to lick at John’s quivering balls. It feels good, incredibly intimate, at least for the first minute or two, and then he gets too sensitive and has to push Sherlock’s face gently away. “Come here,” John says, his voice rasping slightly. He was shouting, he thinks vaguely. Sherlock shifts back up his body, looking down at him with a look so intense that John thinks it could set him on fire. He reaches for Sherlock’s cock and finds it still semi-hard. “Could you come a little more?” he murmurs against Sherlock’s lips, stroking him. Sherlock’s cock twitches in his hand, responding viscerally. 

“I don’t know,” Sherlock says, his eyes hooded, voice low. “You’re certainly welcome to find out…” He stops, groaning as John’s hand caresses him, working over him, and a moment or two later he shudders and comes again, just another small burst. There’s another one and then Sherlock exhales deeply in satisfaction and flops down beside him, an arm stretched out over John’s chest. 

John wishes that Sherlock could just lie directly on top of him, but it won’t be long before his back can handle that. He turns sideways instead and gets his sated, relaxed body draped onto Sherlock’s, stroking his back and, a few minutes later when they can both breathe again, kissing him, pulling him properly into his arms. “You are a god,” he proclaims through half-closed eyes, his mouth on Sherlock’s long neck. “I’ve never felt anything so good in my life. I mean that. You are phenomenal, absolutely amazing! I have no idea how you just – figured all that out without any practise. You’re brilliant, totally wonderful.” 

Sherlock makes an immensely contented sound and writhes even closer to John, fitting himself into every possible empty space between them, and John remembers how much he likes being complimented – specifically by him. He makes a note to do it more often, if Sherlock likes it this much. It’s all true, though. “I’m glad I did it right,” Sherlock says, his eyes bright and happy, and John has no choice but to kiss him again. 

“You were more than right; you were brilliant,” he repeats, and Sherlock makes that same sound. 

“There’s so much I want to try with you,” he says. “Though first I want to perfect my technique in that particular activity. Or perhaps not ‘first’ so much as concurrently, perhaps. We have so much lost time to make up for.” 

“True,” John admits. They chat a little more, and to his own surprise, John falls asleep. He wakes again a bit later, perhaps half an hour, and Sherlock lifts his head from John’s shoulder. “Sorry,” John says. “I fell asleep.” 

Sherlock smiles. “It’s not a problem. It’s night, after all. Though if you’re awake…” 

His eyes gleam predatorily and John feels his cock give a throb of interest already. “What did you have in mind?” he asks, suggestive, and Sherlock sits up. 

“It’s been roughly forty-five minutes,” he says, nodding at John’s cock. “Can I try that again? Or would that be tedious?” 

John has to swallow before hastily reassuring Sherlock on that point. “Not tedious at _all_!” 

Sherlock seems pleased about this. He starts at the opposite end of John’s body this time, sitting cross-legged near his feet and picking up one foot to hold in his lap. John props himself up on both elbows to see what he’s doing. The sight of Sherlock, completely nude and sporting a half-hard erection, would already be more than a little arousing, and now he’s also massaging John’s foot. “Apparently foot fetishes are more common than I had thought,” he says. “At least according to my research.” 

John lifts his eyebrows. “Are you saying that you have a foot fetish?” 

“Not that I’m aware,” Sherlock says, but he’s smiling that rare, roguish smile that brings out his seldom-seen dimples as he lifts John’s foot to his mouth and sucks at the biggest toe. 

John feels a strange bolt of pleasure go through him. “Wow, that’s – that actually feels pretty good,” he admits. 

Sherlock lifts his leg higher to lick at the arch of John’s foot, which almost tickles, but doesn’t quite. “Has no one ever done that to you before?” 

John shakes his head. “I guess I’ve always been pretty boring.”

“Nonsense,” Sherlock says, going back to massaging his foot, his strong thumbs digging into the tendons and it feels wonderful. “I find you the exact opposite of boring.” He switches feet, pleased when John makes the same sound of undeniable pleasure when Sherlock’s lips close over his other big toe. 

“I might just have a fetish for your mouth, honestly,” he says, and Sherlock laughs. 

“You do look at it sometimes. I’ve noticed.” He gets onto his front now and starts touching John’s legs, stroking the fine, light hair there and occasionally running his tongue along a particular plane or ridge, moving upward until he’s at John’s crotch again. By this time, John’s cock is ridiculously hard, his balls swollen as though he hadn’t just come less than an hour ago. Sherlock makes that sound of purred satisfaction again, eyeing it. “You have an extremely pleasing penis,” he says, looking up at John along the length of his body. 

John’s heart is thumping. “Yours is really nice, too,” he says. “I was actually meaning to say that. It’s perfect, honestly.” 

Sherlock looks pleased by this. “Thank you,” he says, and John laughs. His laughing turns immediately into moaning as Sherlock starts sucking his balls again, this time before they’ve spent themselves. 

“Shit,” he says weakly. He wraps one of his legs around Sherlock’s side and hugs Sherlock to himself with it. When Sherlock finishes with his balls he starts licking at the base of John’s cock again, working agonisingly slowly back up to the head. John doesn’t even try to stop the sounds that come out of him when Sherlock finally takes him into his mouth again. He could do this every day, multiple times, for the rest of his life. It feels so good that he could almost cry. Sherlock’s hands are on him, too, one cupping one cheek of his arse while the other works the base of his cock, and it’s absolute heaven. 

Sherlock pauses for a moment, sliding his long middle finger into his mouth, then resumes sucking, his mouth making obscenely wet sounds on John’s flesh. At the same time, he rubs at John’s sensitive balls, then reaches further back and presses a finger to the entrance of John’s body. 

John goes completely rigid. “No!” The word bursts out of him without his even thinking about it. Every muscle in his body goes completely tense, his arse clamping shut. 

Sherlock immediately removes his hand and lets John’s cock slip from his lips, the erection wilting as quickly as it reappeared. “John – ” He sounds alarmed. “I’m sorry, did I – hurt you? I’m sorry! I just – read about that and wanted to – ” He stops, sitting up. “Are you all right?” 

John doesn’t know how to answer that. His entire body is shaking and he feels cold everywhere, his cock soft and limp, gooseflesh on his arms and legs. He can’t respond. He turns onto his side and pulls his knees up to his chest, staring at the far wall and wondering how the hell he’s supposed to explain this weird reaction to Sherlock. His teeth are trying to chatter, the way they did when Sherlock discovered the cuts on his back. 

He can practically hear Sherlock’s distressed brain whirring and trying to put the pieces together. “I’m sorry,” he says again, sounding upset. “I – should have asked before trying that. I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?” 

It didn’t even hurt, not physically. The rejection just came out directly from the gut level, skipping directly over rational considerations. “No,” John says dully. He can’t look at Sherlock so he closes his eyes. 

He can feel the bed shift slightly as Sherlock gestures helplessly. “Can you – tell me what happened? What did I do? I mean – clearly you didn’t like being touched there, but – ” He stops, then starts again. “I feel – lost. I want to understand what I did. Please, John.” 

John’s throat has closed. “I can’t.” His voice is tight and sounds dead in his ears, like the former shell of something. 

Sherlock moves to the edge of the bed and looks at him from there, a careful distance away. “Is this… to do with Mary, somehow?” he asks carefully. There is a silence in which John cannot make himself answer. Sherlock starts talking again, sounding as though he’s wincing. “I’m sorry, John. I don’t mean to press you about her. I just – I _need_ to understand this. If we’re to work, really work, I need to know.”

“I – can’t,” John repeats, hating himself. He pulls himself into an even smaller shape. He’s gone and ruined everything. He can palpably feel how upset Sherlock is, thinking that he did something wrong, and he didn’t. It was the lightest of touches, but the reaction was instinctive, instant rejection. He cannot control that. 

There is a long pause. “Does this have something to do with being perceived as too gay?” Sherlock asks quietly, breaking the silence after a bit. “Doing things with our penises is acceptable, but anything anal is off-limits? Is it something along those lines?” 

It might have been, once, but not any more. “No.” John opens his eyes and stares straight ahead of him. Sherlock will never want to touch him again after this. He wants to cry. Just when things had got so good! Of course it was too good to last. Mary _has_ ruined him for Sherlock after all. He thought he’d got away with it, got away from her, but she managed to poison this before it even started. He hates her. His hate for her is soaking through his veins like toxin, practically seeping out through his skin in dark, soiled profusion, staining him and marking him as something unworthy, something set apart from the human race and spoiled forever. 

“Then it’s Mary,” Sherlock says, almost more to himself. “Can I… go on asking questions?” he asks, and the fact that he’s still being so patient about this almost makes John want to scream. 

It’s no good, he could tell Sherlock. There’s no point talking about this because it’s finished regardless. Not even forty-eight hours in. It was a beautiful dream but they can’t have it. Mary killed it. She didn’t kill Sherlock, and she didn’t kill him, but she killed this beautiful thing that they both wanted so badly. “Fine,” he says tonelessly. 

Sherlock inhales, thinking, possibly trying to pick which question is most important to ask first. “You admitted that there were… other forms of abuse besides the cuts she made on your back,” he begins, very cautiously. “I assume these mostly took the form of manipulation, gaslighting, distorting your perceptions. Guilt trips when you tried to defend yourself. Am I correct in thinking that this sort of thing took place?”

“You forgot constant accusations of homosexuality,” John says to the wall. “And being obsessed with you.” _Which I was and am_ , he doesn’t add. What’s the point, when it’s too late now? 

“What about more physical things?” Sherlock asks. “Did she ever hit you?” 

John hesitates. “No.” He thinks of when she choked him, nearly causing him to pass out. 

Sherlock hears the hesitation. “Please tell me,” he says, almost plaintively. “I just need to know what we’re facing, John. That’s all. I’m not trying to make you feel humiliated or – diminished in any way. I want to be able to help as much as possible. Please tell me: was she ever physically violent with you?” 

John stares at the wall for a long time before he can muster his voice to answer, and even then it comes out half in a whisper. “The day you – didn’t go to Serbia. She – put handcuffs on me. I didn’t want that but she said I had to if I trusted her. And after I told her about the kiss, she… choked me. It was when she said that I could never see you or touch you again, that she would kill you if I did. She asked me if the only reason I was staying with her was to protect you from her and I admitted it.”

He can’t bring himself to look at Sherlock, but the silence is long. “Anything else?” Sherlock asks, his voice low and quiet. 

“Sometimes she wouldn’t let me come,” John says, feeling embarrassed about it all over again. “She’d get me right to the point of orgasm, then change her mind and she always told me I couldn’t get myself off if I cared about her, either. It was always a test and it – hurt. I started worrying sometimes that my balls would actually fall off.” 

“And – that night?” Sherlock asks, still very quiet. “Did she… do anything like that? While you were handcuffed?” 

John thinks again that it’s as if he already knows. He closes his eyes and grips his legs harder. “She made me face the wall,” he says, his throat even tighter than it was. “She was making me confess anything that ever happened with you, so that we could have a ‘new start’. After I told her about the kiss, she…” He stops, unable to speak past the block in his throat. 

He can feel Sherlock shaking through the bed, but with which emotion, specifically, he doesn’t know. “What did she do?” he asks, the words tight and pained. 

John doesn’t want to say the ugly words, the ones that will forever brand him as a rape victim openly, to more than only the two people who were involved in it. He does not want Sherlock’s pity. And more than that, he does not want to endure the shame of having Sherlock know that he was spoiled for him, and how. He makes himself say it. Not saying it won’t make it not have happened. “She… used a dildo on me,” he says, dying internally at the word _dildo_. His breath hitches. “I – asked her not to. I asked her to stop. She – made it bleed. It – hurt.”

His throat closes and he stops talking, awash with shame from head to shaking toe. Sherlock is completely silent, or so John thinks until he opens his eyes several long, absolutely terrible minutes later. He risks a look in Sherlock’s direction. Sherlock is sitting on the edge of the bed, his shoulders hunched, his back to John, and after a moment, John realises that he is crying. It makes him feel instantly so terrible that he can’t hold back his own tears, welling out of him like poison. He lies there on his side like a foetus and cries, hating himself, hating Mary, hating that he ever let that happen to him. 

Sherlock’s head is in his hands, his shoulders heaving. John says his name through a fog of tears and Sherlock wrenches himself off the bed and paces, one hand on his hips, the other on his forehead, not caring about his nudity. He looks as though his entire world has just come crashing down around him and John hates having done that, having ruined this beautiful thing that they almost had. 

He can’t stop crying. He wants to go to Sherlock and say something, comfort him somehow, but how can he even touch Sherlock, now that he knows how Mary ruined him for Sherlock? John gets himself to the edge of the bed. “I’m sorry,” he says, his voice ragged and wrecked from crying. “I’m so sorry, Sher – ” His voice cuts out and he stops. 

Sherlock picks something up from the dresser and hurls it with force into the opposite wall where it shatters. He rakes his hair with all ten fingers, then snarls, “ _No_. You don’t – you can’t be sorry. You _can’t_. It’s not your fault! You cannot assume the blame for this!”

He stops pacing, glaring, his hair sticking out in every direction. John swallows. “Even so,” he says bitterly. “Does it matter whose fault it is? I mean, I’m – ” He can’t say it. 

Sherlock’s eyes are fierce. “You’re _what?”_ he demands, coming closer. 

John doesn’t know which word is the most accurate, so he says the first one that comes to mind. “Ruined for you,” he says, his voice dry and cracking again. “Mary ruined this. Us. Me.”

Sherlock’s entire mouth tightens and works, his fists balling and releasing and clenching again. Then he bursts out, “To hell with that!” 

The very violence of his outburst makes John wince. “What?” he says cautiously. “What do you…”

Sherlock comes swiftly over and sits down beside him at the edge of the bed, his eyes and face more intense than John has ever seen them before. It’s startlingly reminiscent to the way it looked right before he shot Magnussen, John thinks. “John Watson, do you love me?” he demands. “Tell me once and for all!” 

“You know I do,” John says slowly. “But that doesn’t ch – ”

“Shut up, shut _up!”_ Sherlock’s very rudeness is astonishing in light of how extraordinarily gentle he’s been since John came back. “ _No_. I’ll tell you what we’re _not_ going to do: we are not letting Mary Morstan ruin us! She does not have that power over us, John! Only we do! And I say that if we love each other, then we cannot possibly be ruined! Not unless we decide to allow her to do that to us! Do you understand me?” 

John stares into his eyes, his mouth opening, and a wild streak of hope sizzles through his entire being, hard enough to leave him shivering. “Do you – are you sure that we can just – say that?” he stammers, wanting fiercely to believe it. “I mean, I’m – ”

“You’re John,” Sherlock says emphatically, interrupting his cringing, dubious statement. “My John. That’s all that’s ever mattered. It doesn’t _matter_ what she’s done to us, together or separately – what she’s put into our bodies, the doubts and fears she sowed into our minds. We _are_ this. We’re together. Lovers. Partners. That’s a fact, and she does not have the power to change that.” 

He takes John’s hands and John lets him, beyond grateful but still horribly afraid. “But I’m – what she did – how can you still… want me, knowing that she’s – blocked certain things for us? Made me – this?” 

“She hasn’t made you anything,” Sherlock vows. “And it doesn’t matter – I mean, it _matters_ , obviously, but not to me, I mean. If it means there are things you would rather not do, then we won’t do them. I don’t care about that. All I want is you.” 

John gives a laugh that comes out with a sharper edge than he meant it to. “Even broken and bloodied?” 

“Yes.” There isn’t even a nanosecond of hesitation on Sherlock’s part. “Always. Forever. And nothing and no one will ever change that. Ever.” 

John finds he can’t see, his eyes glazed over. He hears Sherlock’s name choke itself from his mouth and Sherlock takes him into his arms and they hold each other almost so tightly that John can’t breathe. He can feel Sherlock’s tears dripping onto his damaged back and knows that his are soaking Sherlock’s neck and shoulder, but the danger moment is past: they are in this together, no matter how rough it gets, and the sheer relief of it is the principal thing that’s making him cry. He doesn’t even know when the last time he cried was, but this is more than warranted, he thinks. He still hates Mary more than he can say, but Sherlock is not going to leave him over what she did to him. He genuinely believes that they have a chance at this, and his faith gives John hope he that wants to believe more than anything. He can’t speak, so he tries to put his relief into his arms alone, and Sherlock’s say it all back to him in heartfelt force. 

*** 

In the end, they don’t make love again that night. Instead they lie together in each other’s arms, awake for much of the night. They don’t talk a lot. John thinks that all he could possibly need is Sherlock’s arms, Sherlock’s presence. Just knowing that Sherlock still wants him and wants him fiercely is sustaining him better than anything else possibly could. 

They sleep late, waking to a tremulous knock from Mrs Hudson. “Sherlock, dear,” she says from the other side of the bedroom door, “I’m sorry to bother you, but it’s your brother. He’s here and he says he needs a word…”

“One moment,” Sherlock tells her, and she retreats. He leans over and kisses John. “Shall we see what he wants?” 

_It could be about Mary_ , John hears. Neither of them says it. He makes himself nod. “Yeah. I guess we should.” 

They get up. John’s clothes are from yesterday and he’d rather not put them back on, so he puts on a pair of Sherlock’s expensive underwear (black and some sort of very smooth lycra business that he immediately decides he’s never giving back), one of his t-shirts, a pair of his pyjama pants, and the plaid dressing gown. The pants are too long but he turns them up at the cuffs and Sherlock doesn’t even try to pretend he’s not smirking at this.

“Shut it, you,” John says, and Sherlock ties the sash of the blue dressing gown closed and kisses him for a long moment in lieu of a verbal response before going to open the door.

It feels oddly like emerging into the real world after the cocoon of the bedroom and everything that happened in it yesterday, John thinks, following Sherlock down the hall. Neither Mycroft nor Mrs Hudson looks surprised to see them come out of the bedroom together, to the extent that John almost feels insulted. They could have pretended, at least, he thinks mildly, but it doesn’t really matter. 

“I’ll leave you to… sort everything out, then,” Mrs Hudson says. She often flees the premises when Mycroft is over, John’s noticed. She catches John’s eye. “There’s tea there,” she says, pointing, and John smiles briefly. 

“Ta,” he says, and she goes. John doesn’t bother about the tea and neither does Sherlock. “What is it?” he asks, his voice tense. 

Mycroft is sitting in the end chair at the kitchen table again, one long leg balanced over the other. He waits until Mrs Hudson’s footsteps have faded from hearing, then pinches the bridge of his nose. “Why don’t you two sit down?” he asks, sounding tired and not entirely happy. 

“Mycroft.” Sherlock is sharper. “What is it?” 

Mycroft sighs. John glances at Sherlock and takes a seat. Sherlock remains standing but puts himself next to John’s chair. “I have to apologise,” Mycroft says, scratching at the table with his index fingernail. “I am… afraid to tell you that Ms Morstan has disappeared.”

“What?” Sherlock snarls the word before John can react. He takes a step forward, towering over his brother. “How could you have let her escape? I thought you were monitoring her every movement?” 

“Sherlock,” John says quietly, and reaches for Sherlock’s hand. Sherlock lets himself be tugged back, still seething. John doesn’t let go but focuses on Mycroft. “What happened?” he asks, trying to ignore the way his heart is pounding. 

Mycroft looks very much abashed. “I am very sorry,” he says, wincing but meeting John’s eye. “It happened so quickly that it’s difficult to piece together what did happen. One minute Ms Morstan appeared to be sleeping on the hospital’s CCTV. The next, the screen goes dark, and by the time anyone noticed that security had been breached, she was gone.” He looks at the table again. “She appeared to be, according to the nurses on duty, in a somewhat… compromised emotional state following the loss of the child. A counsellor was sent to her room and she refused to speak about it. He noted that she seemed to be in control but very, very angry, though she denied it when asked.” Mycroft pauses. “I believe there is cause to believe she may be dangerous,” he says. 

Sherlock is staring at him like a bloodhound on a scent. “You haven’t said everything,” he deduces, and Mycroft nearly winces again. 

His eyes flick to John and John instinctively feels a twinge of panic. “What?” he asks, the word blurting from his mouth. “What is it?” 

Mycroft glances at Sherlock and he puts his hand up as though in self-defence. “I went to the flat to see if Mary had gone there,” he says, not looking at Sherlock’s face. “I went myself because I knew that responsibility for this ultimately lay with me.”

“Of course it does,” Sherlock says harshly. “So what are you saying?” 

Mycroft attempts to placate with his hand again. “What I’m saying is that I am the only person who possesses the intel I am about to disclose,” he says, and suddenly John knows what he is going to say. He feels Sherlock deflate beside him as he realises, too. Mycroft’s eyes are wary, passing over both of them before he speaks again, confirming it. “I apologise, John,” he says very quietly. “I didn’t know. But the evidence found at the flat puts it beyond question.” He hesitates. “I would ask if you’re all right, but presumably the answer would be no. Have you had medical attention?”

Mutely, John shakes his head, unable to look at him. 

“If you would rather avoid the awkward questions that a… regular clinic would invite, I do have medical professionals on my staff,” Mycroft says. “I would be very glad to arrange a private consultation. Here, if you like.” His eyes go to Sherlock’s. “Sherlock would be welcome to stay with you, if you prefer. I am no expert in this field, but I can imagine the… related difficulties.”

Sherlock’s fingers tighten around his and John feels as though he can’t breathe again. He can’t respond, or look at Mycroft. Sherlock looks down at him, then speaks for him. “We’ll discuss it,” he says, equally quietly. “Thank you. I trust that this information will never be shared anywhere, under any circumstances.” 

“You have my word,” Mycroft says, looking plainly into Sherlock’s eyes. “Furthermore.” His gaze shifts back to John, who still can’t bring himself to look at Mycroft. Mycroft waits a moment, then goes ahead regardless. “Should Ms Morstan evade my security and get herself here, I am clearing you both to respond in any way you see fit.”

John finally looks at him, the statement cutting through the clouds of shame beating at his head. “Any way?” he repeats, staring hard at Mycroft. 

“Any way,” Mycroft says firmly. “There will be no consequences. No fall-out. No legal repercussions. I can promise an utter lack of investigation. Should you prefer to deal with Ms Morstan yourselves, that is. If you would rather have her taken care of by another means, simply let me know and it will be done. Any request will be honoured. Prison. A convenient ‘accident’. Expatriation to the United States and directly from there to a maximum security penitentiary. If you decide you would like a trial held for your attempted murder, Sherlock. If you decide you would like to press charges of your own, John. Anything you want.” 

Sherlock looks down at him, very obviously communicating what he said earlier, that the choice is John’s to make. John swallows. “We’ll let you know,” he says, echoing Sherlock, his voice coming out even and measured. 

Mycroft nods and gets to his feet. “My deepest apologies about the escape,” he says. “My people are still searching for the answer, but at the moment I am personally more interested in where Ms Morstan is now. I need not tell either of you to be careful. Please let me know if there is anything I can do.”

Sherlock’s mouth tightens, but John tugs warningly at his hand. It’s too late now; Mary has already fled the hospital. “We will,” John says, and Mycroft takes that (accurately) as his hint to go. 

Sherlock waits until the door downstairs has closed. Then he exhales deeply. “I’m sorry,” he says, not looking at him, though his hand is still in John’s. “I hate that he knows. You must hate that.” 

For once, despite this being true and despite everything else, John actually feels as though he can comfort Sherlock. He tugs him down into his lap and puts his arms around him. “I do,” he acknowledges. “But there’s nothing to be done about it now. And at least we know that we can – act as we see fit, if the occasion arises.”

Sherlock puts his fingers in John’s hair. “You’ll need to make a decision soon, then,” he warns. “Just so that Mycroft knows what’s to be done with her if he finds her first. And – for my sake, too.” 

John nods. “I’ll give it some thought.” 

“Can I ask… ?” Sherlock peers at his face. “If Mary burst in here right now, acting in a way you considered dangerous, what would your gut reaction be? What would you want to do?” 

John shakes his head, unable to answer. “I don’t know,” he says, evading Sherlock’s eyes. 

Sherlock is still for a moment. Then he accepts it. “Okay,” he says, and that’s that. He doesn’t pursue it or press the point. Just that: _Okay_. He kisses John’s forehead, then his cheek and his jaw and then John puts a hand on his face and their mouths find each other’s again, and this is the one thing that makes John feel calm and centred again. They kiss for a long time, neither one of them in a hurry for it to end. A long time later, Sherlock pulls back and asks, “Hungry?” 

John nods. “Shall we make breakfast?” 

Sherlock looks over at the clock on the microwave. “It’s almost one,” he says. “Lunch? I could make sushi, if you like?” 

“ _We_ could make sushi,” John corrects him, and Sherlock gives in, smiling. 

“All right,” he says. “Why don’t you find the rolling mats, then, and I’ll put the rice on?” 

“Deal,” John says, and it works again: Sherlock managed somehow, miraculously, to make things feel normal. 

*** 

That night, Sherlock goes down to answer the door when the bell rings. He shows the young doctor that Mycroft sent up to John’s old room, where the bed has been stripped down to the sheets. He stays outside while John is examined. Like every other doctor he knows, he hates medical examinations and this one is worse than usual. The young medic exchanges no words of introduction or greeting beyond the bare necessities, not offering a name or asking for one in return. He asks as little as possible, though John is still forced to explain the nature of his issue. 

“There was an… incident, involving a… recreational sex toy,” he says stiffly. When the doctor raises his eyebrows in mild question, he specifies with difficulty, “A dildo.” 

“Ah.” The doctor rolls on a pair of gloves. “Let’s have a look, then, shall we?” He is mild and impersonal and it would have been fine if John hadn’t tensed up the instant the doctor touched him, his arse muscles all clamping shut. That resulted in an awkward conversation, an eventual examination that left tears of humiliation on John’s face, a quiet reassurance that the tears in his flesh are healing well and should cause him no further trouble physically… and the card of a colleague who specialises in trauma counselling, with a deftly-given suggestion that John call and make an appointment in the very near future. “You’ll just need to reference Mr Holmes to be given priority,” the doctor tells him as John dresses as quickly as his shaking fingers will permit him. 

John mumbles his thanks and waits for the doctor to go. Sherlock is waiting outside the bedroom on the stairs and sees the doctor out. When he comes back up, John is fiddling with the card, still standing in the middle of the room. Sherlock comes over and looks at it without taking it from his fingers. “Ah,” he says briefly, but doesn’t say anything else, not pressuring John to call or scoffing it off as unnecessary. “Come downstairs,” he says instead. “Mrs Hudson made banoffee pudding for us. I’ll make some coffee to go with it, unless you’d rather have tea.” 

John takes a long breath and nods. “Okay,” he says. 

Sherlock glances at him and pulls him into a hug. “You all right?” he asks lightly, but John can hear the concern beneath it. 

“Yeah.” The word is mumbled into Sherlock’s shoulder. 

“He knew.” 

“I kind of gave away the game.”

“You’ll never see him again. Don’t worry.” Sherlock kisses his head, then finds his hand. “Come on,” he says, and leads the way downstairs. 

Later, in what John already thinks of as ‘their’ bed, he turns to Sherlock. “I want to try going down on you,” he says. 

Sherlock looks at him in surprise. “Do you?” he asks, as though it were an odd thing for John to have said. 

John feels instantly defensive. “Yeah, I do. What’s wrong with that?” 

“Nothing,” Sherlock says instantly. “I just thought that… you might not want to… do anything like that tonight.” 

John frowns. “Why wouldn’t I?” 

Sherlock’s lips compress a bit and he speaks carefully, as though choosing his words very deliberately. “I thought that… between my brother’s visit and the other one, you might not be in the mood. That’s all.” 

John understands the concern, but nonetheless feels his spirits wilt under it. He turns onto his back again and looks up at the ceiling. It still is ruining everything. “Well, I was until you suggested that I shouldn’t be,” he says stiffly. 

“John!” Sherlock is immediately apologetic, and that doesn’t help. “I’m sorry, I – I didn’t mean to blunder. Sorry. I was just – if you’re up for that, I definitely am. I wasn’t trying to tell you what you feel or don’t feel – not in the slightest! I was just trying to – be considerate. It’s not my forte.” 

John feels badly for having made him feel bad. “It’s okay,” he says, rubbing his eyes. “I’m sorry. I just – ”

“You don’t need to explain,” Sherlock says swiftly. He turns on his side and puts a hand on John’s belly through his t-shirt, warm through the material. “Kiss me, would you?” 

John hesitates, then turns back onto his side and kisses Sherlock hard, trying not to be angry. He wishes he could just feel normal again, that he didn’t have to carry around this Thing with him all the time. The kiss is a good distraction, though, as they always seem to be. Perhaps he doesn’t need therapy. Perhaps he only needs Sherlock. He reaches into Sherlock’s pyjama pants after a few minutes and finds him semi-hard already. He strokes him into full hardness, then says against his mouth, “Take these off.”

Sherlock scrambles to obey, stripping off everything at once. “You too?” he asks hopefully, and John smiles at him and strips. 

“Don’t know why we bothered putting them on in the first place,” he says, and Sherlock smirks. 

“I expect we’ll learn soon enough.” They arrange themselves the way they were again, and John kisses him and starts jerking him off, and when Sherlock’s legs start to quiver with want, he kisses his way down his body the way Sherlock did and gets his mouth on Sherlock’s cock. Sherlock exhales hard, his cock jerking in John’s mouth and it leaks a bit the instant John’s tongue touches it. It’s salty and warm and somehow exactly what he expected. He likes it, he discovers immediately, likes being able to feel it so close, feel exactly what it’s doing, how it’s reacting. Although Sherlock’s voice could definitely give him some fairly strong clues; he is moaning unrestrainedly, his head thrown back as John’s mouth bobs up and down the length of him, massaging with this hands. John throws himself into it, sucking and licking and kissing it, taking Sherlock’s balls into his mouth one at a time and keeping his hand going on Sherlock’s cock at the same time, then replacing it with his mouth again. Sherlock leaks more and more, gasping as his hips jerk, fighting his self-imposed restraint and wanting to pump up into John’s mouth. Suddenly Sherlock gives a sharp sound that’s meant to be his name, only he doesn’t get past the _J_ and John understands it’s meant to be a warning, but it comes too late – Sherlock abruptly shoots off in his mouth, nearly choking him, but he was intending to swallow, anyway. He gets the mouthful down him, then eases off toward the head of Sherlock’s cock, pumping away with his hand, and Sherlock’s cock spurts again, then a third time as Sherlock pants raggedly, an arm thrown over his face. 

John keeps a hand on him, just holding his cock and balls all together as he spreads himself over Sherlock’s heaving chest and kisses his face. “Okay?” he asks, aiming for levity. 

Sherlock opens his eyes, which are flushed dark and starry. “John – ” He reaches for John and they kiss almost violently, and John realises that he’s finally hard again. Sherlock reaches for him and begins to rub at his cock, then breaks off the kiss and asks, “Can I do you? I want to – please!”

“God, yes,” John says frankly, and Sherlock looks relieved. 

“Just slide up here,” he says, pushing himself into a semi-sitting position against the headboard. 

John gets what he means and shuffles forward, straddling Sherlock’s torso. Sherlock takes his cock and holds it to his mouth, shifting to get himself to the correct height for this. John takes hold of the headboard and revels in the sensation of Sherlock’s mouth on him. Sherlock is as into it as John is, sucking with such enthusiasm that John is still startled and genuinely moved by it. He looks down at that perfect mouth on his cock and groans just at the sight of it. Sherlock forgets himself at one point, squeezing John’s arse with both hands, which he normally likes. Tonight it makes him flinch, though, and Sherlock immediately removes his hands and strokes John’s sensitive sides instead, his mouth never faltering for a moment. John’s concentration wavers. Perhaps he does need therapy. (He does not want to think about this. He already has one therapist and resents needing even that much.) Sherlock takes him all the way into his throat then and John moans and pushes himself as far in as he can go, remembering to pull out and let Sherlock breathe every so often. He comes shortly after that, feeling Sherlock’s flexible throat swallow around him, squeezing, and it’s phenomenal. It’s such an intimate thing to do for someone and Sherlock obviously adores doing it. John pulls his softening cock from Sherlock’s mouth and moves down, pulling Sherlock’s face to his and kissing him as hard as he can. “I love you,” he says after, meaning it with every single part of his being. 

Sherlock’s arms are wound around his back, his proximity as dizzying as a drug. “I love _you_ ,” he counters, opening his eyes to look into John’s, open and beautifully, unbelievably open. “So much, John. More than anything. More than my own life.”

“I know that,” John says, pushing his fingers into Sherlock’s hair. “How can I not know that, now? After everything you’ve done for me?”

Sherlock smiles. “I’m glad you know,” he says, and kisses John again. They roll over and over in the bed in each other’s arms, and the scabbed cuts stretch and pull but don’t break. 

_Everything heals, eventually,_ John thinks, and feels more peaceful than he has in longer than he can remember. It’s a relief to actually be able to think this, to be able to let go of what happened to him for at least a little while. He falls asleep with Sherlock’s arms around him. 

*** 

The next time that he flinches when Sherlock touches his arse, John makes an appointment with the specialist on the card he was given. He sees him later that same day and comes out to where Sherlock is waiting in the waiting room with renewed determination. And while he freezes up at first that night, he succeeds in allowing Sherlock to touch him there. Sherlock insists that they do the reverse first, that John try it on him first, and it helps. John tenses as Sherlock rubs around the entrance, his fingers slick with lubricant and gentle. He kisses Sherlock with something very much like desperation, but makes affirmative sounds in answer to Sherlock’s questioning ones, and even if his arms tighten around Sherlock’s next he does not ask him to stop as his slender middle finger breaches him and begins to probe with utmost care. John’s heart is thundering, but then Sherlock presses against his prostate and he groans without knowing he was going to. He makes urgent noises at Sherlock, who gets it and takes hold of his cock then, and John comes shortly thereafter with a single finger inside him. He makes another appointment in the morning, and at its conclusion, makes one for every day that week. He is determined to get to a point where there is nothing he will deny Sherlock. Over the course of the week, they branch out. There is little else to do; they leave the flat as little as possible for safety’s sake. John discovers that he loves making Sherlock come from his fingers, gathered into his lap on the sofa in a sweaty tangle of limbs, panting into John’s hair as John twists two fingers inside him and rubs his cock, coming hard, his hand clamping down over John’s on himself as his body spasms. It turns John on more than he can say, and one day after this, Sherlock asks him breathlessly if he’d like to fuck him. 

Even hearing Sherlock say that word is enough to make John’s cock twitch, practically jumping in its enthusiasm for this idea. John hesitates for some reason that he cannot seem to identify, at least the first time. There is some vague notion in his head that if he does that to Sherlock, it will cause him pain. He discusses it with the counsellor the next day, and makes the connection between the fear of the abused becoming the abuser. 

“Do you intend to hurt your partner?” the counsellor asks, looking at John over his glasses. 

“No,” John says instantly. “Never. I would never hurt him if I could possibly avoid it. I love him.” 

“And you would otherwise be interested in exploring penetrative sex with him?” The man is unfazed by any and all discussion of sex between two men, to John’s relief. He never once brings out labels or tells John what he is or isn’t, and John is grateful. 

John feels his face heat a little. He crosses his legs and avoids eye contact. “Er, yeah,” he says. “Definitely interested.” 

“Specifically in being the top position?” the counsellor asks. 

“Yeah.” John studies a patch of rug, his cheeks flushing pink. 

“Have you noticed any urges to hurt him arising in any of the other acts you’ve participated in so far?” The counsellor’s pen is poised over the clipboard resting on one knee. “Or at any point outside of sexual activity?”

John shifts on the expensive leather sofa across from him. “No, not so far,” he says. “I guess I just worry. I mean, I know it’s been a typical pattern for other… victims of abuse.” This time he manages to say the word ‘victim’ almost without flinching. 

The counsellor doesn’t praise him, perhaps suspecting that John wouldn’t like it. (He’s good, John thinks.) “True, but if it hasn’t proven to be a pattern between the two of you thus far, you may be all right. Give it a try, if you feel comfortable,” the counsellor suggests. “In the end, there’s no other way to find out but to try it and see what happens.”

“I want to, for him,” John says, feeling wistful. “He wants to try it. He’s made that pretty clear. And I’d like to. I… saw a doctor recently and he tested me for diseases and that, and that’s fine. I’m clean; I just – I don’t want to become… someone like that.” He looks across at the counsellor. “Is it as simple as deciding that I’m not ever going to do that to him, or anything like it?” 

The counsellor gives a rare smile. “It may be,” he says. 

John decides that he will try it. That night, they shower together and John fingers Sherlock and plays with his cock a little but doesn’t get him off. “In bed,” he promises, and Sherlock herds him out of the shower with his knees and long arms, making John laugh. They don’t even dry themselves all the way; Sherlock distracts him too much by snogging him up against the counter and John finally gives up and lets himself be dragged into the bedroom. He gets Sherlock down onto his hands and knees and kneels behind him. They’ve discussing rimming but never tried it so far. The first time he gets his tongue anywhere near Sherlock’s hole, Sherlock moans so loudly that John is genuinely afraid that Mrs Hudson will come up to check on him. He loves that Sherlock likes it so much, though, and is encouraged to try it all the more. Sherlock is writhing against his mouth, hands scrabbling for purchase in the sheets. John reaches around for his cock and finds it flat against Sherlock’s stomach in its want, dripping and twitching in his hand. 

“Please,” Sherlock begs, evidently not caring a shred for his dignity. “I need you in me, John – please!”

It’s precisely what John was waiting for. Sitting back on his heels he picks up the tube of lubricant he managed to bring unnoticed to bed with them and smears some onto his cock, then slips two fingers into Sherlock’s body. It already feels pretty open from his tongue, but he wants to be sure. “Okay,” he says. “But you have to promise to tell me if it hurts. I won’t hurt you. I just won’t.”

“I promise,” Sherlock says instantly. He puts his forehead down on his forearms, his arse stuck up in the air, and John has to swallow, just looking at him, so clearly and obviously wanting it. Wanting him. 

He gets himself into position behind Sherlock and guides his cock to the right place, kneeling between Sherlock’s legs. “I love you,” he says, somehow needing to say it just then, and pushes the head of his cock inside. He immediately wants to die; the sensation is so overwhelmingly good that he can hardly breathe. He sucks in breath and hears Sherlock doing the same thing, which causes him a spike of alarm. “Are you – ”

“Amazing,” Sherlock gasps. “More – John – oh God, pl – ”

Relieved and encouraged and incredibly turned on all at once, John pushes further in, feeling for any seizing up of Sherlock’s muscles, the slightest sound of discomfort or pain or even panic, but all he hears is Sherlock’s deep voice moaning unrestrainedly. “Still – good?” he manages. 

“More!” Sherlock requests, or commands, possibly. It doesn’t matter. John obliges, pushing in all the way down to the root. 

He looks down at himself, buried in Sherlock’s body, and thinks, _Finally_. They are one. They’ve touched each other and engaged in most other manners of sexual activity, but this is the first time they’ve really, really been joined this way, and it’s amazing, as Sherlock just said. It’s breathtaking. Life-changing. “I’m in you,” he says in undisguised wonder. “You’re sure you’re all right?” 

“I have never been better in all my life,” Sherlock says, his voice a bit muffled against his arms. “You can move. It feels good, having you there.” 

John begins to move, his arms trembling, and it feels so good he feels like he could do this for the rest of his life, just never been physically apart from Sherlock again. Sherlock is moaning, his cock still hard as a rod, and John begins stroking it after awhile, his hips moving faster and faster in his hunger to plunge ever deeper and deeper into Sherlock. It becomes a blur, his fist jerking over Sherlock’s cock, following Sherlock’s requests and thrusting harder and harder into him until his hips are slamming into Sherlock’s body, his cock absolutely on fire within the tight heat of him. It’s easily better than anything else he’s ever felt, ever, with anyone. No competition. He can hear himself panting, his voice hoarse, and the instant Sherlock’s body tightens and starts to come, he lets himself go, flooding Sherlock with his own release, still pumping furiously into him as the grip of Sherlock’s body works it out of him. 

When he’s finally spent, John pulls out and collapses onto Sherlock’s back and Sherlock’s legs give way and they tumble facedown onto the bed, chests and backs heaving. For several panting minutes, neither of them speaks. Sherlock is the first to do so, after a bit. “Holy shit,” he says, still breathing hard, and John makes a noise of fervent acquiescence. 

“That was – incredible,” he says, feeling dazed and spent in the best of ways. 

“I want to find out exactly how long I’m going to live so that I can calculate how many times we can possibly do that before I die and then double it,” Sherlock says. 

John’s heart swells impossibly at this and he spontaneously shifts closer and kisses Sherlock as hard as he can, possibly too hard, but Sherlock clearly isn’t bothered, giving it back just as hard. 

*** 

John continues to make progress. Meanwhile, Mary is not seen or heard from. Mycroft calls daily to report. Sherlock asks him one day if there is any possibility that Mary, grieving the baby’s death, may have slipped out of the country to mourn in relative privacy, trying to avoid the surveillance. He’s got Mycroft on the speaker and John listens as Mycroft says, “No. I’m fairly certain we would know. All car rental agencies, all bus stations, all train stations are all alert.” 

“She could have just hijacked a car,” Sherlock points out, his hands on his hips. 

“She _will_ turn up on CCTV one day,” Mycroft insists. “And then we’ll have her.” 

“Right,” Sherlock says, not sounding convinced. “Keep looking.” 

“We will,” Mycroft says, sounding weary, and Sherlock disconnects. 

It’s been ten days since the death of the baby and five since John managed to top for the first time. It’s happened nearly every day since then, and he is able to consistently handle Sherlock touching his arse with his fingers and, as of last night, his tongue. In fact, John came from that alone, sprawled face first down on the sofa with Sherlock’s face buried between his cheeks, coming so hard that he’d hit himself in the face, his cock untouched. It was fantastic, but he knows that Sherlock still wants to try topping, himself. He hasn’t said it – would never say it, John knows – but he can feel that Sherlock wants it. He _loves_ touching John’s arse more than John would have imagined possible, always starting carefully, in case it makes John react badly, but then squeezing or fingering or kissing with abandon, sometimes biting gently at the curves of muscle, sometimes slapping lightly in passing. And John loves having it touched, as long as he can control his brain and not be stupid about it. The counselling helps. 

That night, he is standing naked by the bedroom window looking out over the city and at the crescent moon, waiting for Sherlock to finish brushing his teeth and come to him, which he does a moment later. He comes up behind John and puts his arms around his waist, kissing his ear and neck, his erection already bumping up against John’s arse, hands stroking over his nipples and stomach and chest. John caresses his forearms, tilting his head to give Sherlock better access to his throat, then says, “I’m ready. I want to try it.” 

Sherlock goes a bit still. “Try what?” he asks, his lips still on John’s neck. 

John turns his head very slightly. “I want you to fuck me,” he says, very clearly. “I’m ready.” 

Sherlock’s breath catches in his throat. “Now?” 

“Now,” John confirms. “Right here. Like this. Okay?” 

“We need – ”

“Here.” John picks up the lube from the window sill and gives it to him. 

Sherlock makes a sound of reproach. “Not without preparation,” he says. He gets his fingers slicked up and begins to massage John’s hole, his lips pulling at John’s left ear lobe at the same time, his free hand rolling John’s right nipple between long fingers. 

It feels good and John feels shivers of pleasure rolling over his body. “More,” he requests, and Sherlock kisses his shoulder and drops to his knees in one swift, graceful motion. He uses his tongue to open John, slowly and methodically until John is panting and shuddering with sheer pleasure, and then Sherlock stands again, reaching around to stroke John’s cock and cup his balls. “I’m ready,” John tells him, meaning it for real this time, and this time Sherlock doesn’t refute it. 

“All right,” he says, his voice low and smoky and intimate. There’s the smallest shift in their positions and then Sherlock is fitting himself to John. “Same promise,” he requests. “I want to know if it hurts. Physically or – otherwise.” 

“Promise,” John says, and with that, Sherlock pushes all the way into him in one slow, careful, but fluid motion. No stopping and starting, just one smooth push and he’s all the way inside. John exhales vocally. 

“How does it feel?” Sherlock asks, his mouth on John’s ear, so intimate that it almost feels as though his voice is inside John’s very skull. 

“Good!” John gasps. “Better than I – though I thought it would be – no, it’s good! Really good!” 

Sherlock makes a deeply satisfied sound. “I’m going to move a little,” he murmurs. “Tell me if it hurts.” 

John sees the sensation in colours, shifting from deep red to deeper burgundy, then, as Sherlock moves, sky blue pleasure, intensifying, then spiking into silver streamers behind his eyes. He’s bent forward a little and Sherlock is holding his chest with one hand and his cock with the other, stroking John in time with his thrusts. John has lost his sense of time completely, his mouth open in wordless pleasure as Sherlock fills him and fills him again. When he comes, it takes him by surprise and tears a shout from his throat and Sherlock’s echoing moan is higher than usual. He speeds up then, pumping hard and fast into John and then coming with a shout so primal that John is aroused just from the sound of it, his cock spurting again just from hearing it. 

They stagger to the bed and collapse into it, not caring about the come all over the wall next to the window or the floor, Sherlock kissing him feverishly, knelt over him, his strong arms around John like pillars. John gets his legs and arms around Sherlock and kisses back as hard as he can give it. It would sound ridiculous to put into words, he thinks, but it feels like the consummation of a marriage. They belong to each other fully and completely now. There is no space for doubt. Never again. 

Before they go to sleep, Sherlock traces the lines on John’s back. The scabs are gone, but the scars are still whitely visible and always will be. The cuts are healed, though, and Sherlock’s fingers feel good on his skin. “I love when you do that,” John tells him, his head turned sideways, resting on his forearms. 

Sherlock’s lips smile. “Do you?” he asks rhetorically. “How does it feel, having my initials marked permanently on your back?” 

“Saves me having to get them tattooed on,” John says lightly, but Sherlock frowns a little. 

“I was serious,” he says, the wrinkles at the bridge of his nose appearing. “It’s a real question.” 

John smiles nicely at him. “I know,” he says. “All right, then. Here’s my serious answer: you’ve got jagged lines from whip scars, a burn scar, and a stab wound scar on your back, and they’re there because you love me. Because you would have done anything to protect me. You endured all of that for my sake. And on top of it, you would have given your life just to give me mine, a life you knew wasn’t even good for me, but it was what I seemed to have chosen at the time. You would have died so that I could have that. Be with Mary, maybe have a baby. And you did that after I had rejected you and hurt you horribly. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is. In my view, I belong to you so completely and utterly that it might as well be tattooed on every inch of my skin. Bearing your initials on my skin isn’t about Mary and what she did to me any more. Not for me. I’m proud to have your name carved into me, Sherlock. I’m _yours_. Now and forever.” 

Sherlock is blinking and swallowing, his jaw clamping shut. He breathes deeply and John reaches for his face. Sherlock turns his face into John’s palm and says his name, breathed like a prayer. “I’m yours,” he swears in response, and John crawls onto him and holds him as close as he possibly can. 

*** 

In the morning, they wake in the same positions, smiling sleepily at each other. John gets up to pee and splash some water onto his face and brush his teeth, then comes out, stretching. Sherlock watches him from the bed, smiling appreciatively. He slides out like a panther, stalks across the room to John and kisses him, standing as close as possible, and John feels him hardening within seconds. He’d never had any idea that Sherlock could be this into sex, but it’s a great surprise, frankly. He thinks of how much Sherlock wanted this to happen, that he was the one to decide to show John his scars, thinking that that would finally do it. That he was the one to initiate that first kiss, there on the sofa. He wanted this so badly, and now that he finally has it, he’s giving it his all, and John loves every bloody second of it. 

By time the kiss ends, they’re already writhing against each other, but Sherlock pulls away. “I have to piss,” he says, as though this boring fact pains him immensely. 

John kisses him again anyway. “Then go, and come back to bed,” he says, lifting his eyebrows in suggestion, and Sherlock goes. 

John is lounging on his side when Sherlock comes back, sporting an erection and entertaining happy ideas about what he’d like to do with it. Sherlock shakes the water off his hands and says, complaining, “I’m almost too hard to go.”

“But you managed,” John says. “Come here.”

“Just barely. But I did.” Sherlock crawls across the bed to him, his hand going immediately for John’s cock. “What should we do with this?” he asks, his eyes slanting with seductive intent. 

“I want to try it sitting up,” John says. He saw it on a website the other day and has been waiting for a good moment to bring it up. Today everything feels different. He conquered the great demon of bottoming for the first time and frankly loved it, and now it just feels like anything and everything is possible. Life is beautiful again. Sherlock makes interested sounds, so John shows him what he means. They’re facing each other, Sherlock’s legs over his, bent at the knee, and he lifts himself a little to allow John to push into him. It’s a bit tight without any preparation, but Sherlock has been taking it a lot lately and it doesn’t take long before he stretches around John’s well-lubed cock and they start moving together, Sherlock leaning back on his palms. John holds onto his hips and thrusts into him, aided by Sherlock lifting and shunting his weight down onto John at the same time. They find a rhythm and it’s good – very, very good, in fact. Sherlock comes first, shouting and spurting come all over his chest and belly, and John lets himself go then, holding Sherlock still and driving up into him until the sweet friction of it overtakes him and wrings his release from him in gushing waves, or so it feels. 

Sherlock pulls himself forward, holding John’s shoulders, and they get their arms around each other and kiss, still breathing hard against each other’s chins. It’s blissful, but – 

The bedroom door flies open with a bang and John startles so hard his heart leaps into his throat. It’s Mary, and she’s armed. She looks awful, John thinks fleetingly. She’s dressed in black but she’s left off the hat. Her hair is showing two inches of dark/greying roots and her face looks haggard, the bags under her eyes full and puffy, the lines around her mouth deeper than they were the last time he saw her. He feels like he can’t move. His entire body is rigid with panic, and he’s still inside Sherlock, his legs wrapped around him in a difficult position to extricate himself from quickly. Mary’s gun is pointed at him. 

Faster than lightning, Sherlock reaches behind him under the pillows and somehow, within nanoseconds, John’s SIG is in his right hand. He points it unhesitatingly at Mary. “John,” he says, under his breath. 

John doesn’t even think about it. He puts his left hand on the gun around Sherlock’s, steadying his arm, and together they aim at Mary. Sherlock doesn’t glance at him as he takes his finger from the trigger, freeing it for John. Mary’s gun is fitted with a silencer, the safety already released, and she’s aiming at John’s chest. She opens her mouth to speak and John decides on the spot that he has no desire to ever hear her voice again. He doesn’t hesitate. He pulls the trigger. 

Mary slumps instantly to the floor, a red circle in the centre of her forehead. Like Sherlock with Magnussen, John didn’t bother wasting time with chest shots. A clean kill. “It’s better than she deserved,” he says, not realising he’s speaking out loud until he hears himself. 

“I agree,” Sherlock says shortly. “But it’s over now. It’s finished. You did the right thing.” 

John looks at him in sudden wonder. “How long have you had the SIG in the pillows?” 

“Every night since you came home,” Sherlock says tersely. “And every minute that we were awake, I had it on my body. There was never a minute when I was unarmed. Just in case.”

John marvels at him. “And you kept me from knowing – how did I never touch it or brush against it?” 

“You did, sometimes,” Sherlock informs him, smirking. “You just didn’t notice.” He reaches for his phone, causing John’s cock to finally slip from his body. He presses a key for speed dial, waits a moments, then drawls into the receiver. “Brother mine. Fire your staff; they’re useless. You can come and collect the body of one Mary Morstan from my bedroom as soon as you can get your agents here. We’d like it out of sight as soon as possible.” 

He disconnects and grins at John, and John grins back. He knows that he shouldn’t – he’s just killed someone, for God’s sake – but he feels lighter than air. Somehow he knows that he won’t need any more therapy for this. (He’s fairly certain that both his counsellors wouldn't agree, but he doesn’t particularly care.) “I’m glad that the last thing she saw was us, together,” John says with vicious pleasure. “I was still inside you when we shot her.” 

“You were indeed,” Sherlock says, his mouth quirking into a smile. “It must have been quite a sight. No wonder she was upset.” He leans over and kisses John. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s put something on before Mycroft’s morons arrive. I’m going to make tea.” 

He disappears into the kitchen and John follows more slowly. He bends over and looks at Mary’s face one last time. Her eyes are wide open and staring, and he shivers. “I believe in hell, you know,” he tells her quietly. “There’s a place for you there. I wish I had never met you. I wish you had never been born. You’re a monster. But you didn’t ruin me. You didn’t ruin Sherlock and I. We’re fine, him and me. I hope you’re hearing this. You failed. And I hope you rot for all eternity." 

“John?” Sherlock calls from the kitchen. “Are you decent? My brother’s just arriving.”

“Goodbye Mary, or whoever you are,” John says, and steps over her. “I’m coming!” he calls to Sherlock. Sherlock is waiting for him in the kitchen. John goes to find him, and never once looks back. All that is over now. 

*


End file.
